Show Me the Place, 10

“Show me the place.”

Duke Senior in As You Like It (2.1)

11: Garfield Road; Hiram, Ohio; late 1950s

We bought a home, just down the hill

From Hiram College and the town.

It was more fun to travel down

Than up that hill. The house is still

Now standing there—and looks a lot

The way it did when we were there.*

Of course, it isn’t really fair

To think there will not be a jot

Of change in places that you know—

And loved. For change is, well, supreme—

And life itself is not a dream

Where things somehow avoid the flow

Of time. I spent my years of youth

While living there. But then my folks

Moved to Des Moines**—and all the spokes

Of youth then broke—a wrenching truth.

*1958(?)–1966

**both joined the faculty of Drake University that fall

Pic from Google Earth