Main Street

Chilly frigid afternoon so welcoming like your welcomes
This town is smaller than I remembered
when my tiny legs walked to the corner bakery
for jelly doughnuts and bear claws.
We’d watch the Christmas parade on Main Street
From your second floor office window
the front door is still red as it was 20 years ago
the river still cascades beside the red mill
where we trick-or-treated and fed the ducks
during some October along time ago.
Long enough ago to have my face painted
when I was small enough to sit on your lap
and too young to appreciate any of it.
Main street seems shorter this Christmas
when once it was a never ending path
I was never brave enough to venture alone
until today some decades later
when the wind is swirling my long blond hair
around its indifferent frigid fingers
ushering everyone into the warmth
of nearby antique shops and cafes
while the street is silent in my reflection.
Would he recognize his first granddaughter
standing at the red front door 20 years later
still blond and blue eyed and smiling
looking up at his second floor office
from a Main street I’ll always return to
in your memory.


In loving memory of Richard J. Wisniewski