Were I to repeat a slice of time...

Were I to repeat a slice of time, it would be the brief childhood years painted on clear bright cool Saturday mornings, festooned with wild grape vines running over craggy shale walls between backyards, and the sweet sour grapes that the birds don't eat, and wild pears and apples and mulberries and rhubarb, and an ancient willow (that must have been there since our backyards were carved from a cornfield and has been dropping worm skeletons every fall ever since) and tall leafy oaks and birches and maples through which I watched the sun set from my upstairs bedroom;

and bicycles with stingray handlebars and banana seats and clothes-pinned playing cards trilling the spokes;

punctuated by Jimmy and Pufnstuf, Tiger Beat, Chief Jay Strongbow and Andre the Giant, Love Boat and Fantasy Island and Saturday is bath night, time to get ready for Sunday dress up and go to church so different from sunny Saturday;

and garlanded with holiday fancies that come out of the attic once a year - cornucopia, pilgrim candles, Indian corn, hinged cardboard scarecrows and turkeys that smell of must and kindle Christmas anticipation;

and swarming with grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins, the smell of Lemon Pledge still on furniture polished yesterday, the best china and silver, and later pie and coffee (and a little melting ice cream), and later still leftovers that are a little better if left over a little longer;

and silent nighttime prayers through the window that overlooks the street with the trees that lift up the moon and stars above distant trundling train wheels;

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