When I think of the NOUN of my youth, all
that I seem to VERB is dust—the ADJECTIVE, ADJECTIVE
dust of ADJECTIVE summer— ADJECTIVE, ADJECTIVE dust that gets into
the PLURAL BODY PART and makes them VERB, gets into the BODY PART
and between the PLURAL BODY PART of bare brown PLURAL BODY PART. I don’t know why I should remember only the dust. Surely there
must have been ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE lawns and ADJECTIVE ENDING WITH ED streets under leafy shade PLURAL NOUN somewhere in town; but
memory is a(n) ADJECTIVE NOUN—it does not present
things as they are, but rather as they VERB. And so,
when I think of that time and that NOUN, I remember
only the ADJECTIVE September of the ADJECTIVE roads and ADJECTIVE
yards of the shantytown where I VERB ENDING IN ED. And one other
thing I remember, another NOUN of
memory—a(n) ADJECTIVE ONOMATOPOEIA of sunny COLOR against the
dust—Miss Lottie’s marigolds.
Whenever the memory of those marigolds
across my mind, a strange NOUN comes
with it and VERB long after the NOUN has faded. I
again the ADJECTIVE emotions of adolescence,
illusive as NOUN, yet as real as the ADJECTIVE NOUN
before me now. EMOTION and EMOTION and ADJECTIVE animal
gladness and shame become VERB ENDING WITH ED together in the
ADJECTIVE NOUN of fourteen-going-on-fifteen as I
recall that moment when I was suddenly
more NOUN than child, AMOUNT OF TIME ago in Miss Lottie’s
. I think of those marigolds at the times; I
remember them ADVERB now as I ADVERB pass
away the time.
