In Suburbia

 

One of the first things to become familiar was the pair 

of  mop-haired brothers who unhurried delivered

the Evening News to the old man opposite

in  their school clothes and sneakers around 5 o' clock 

sack straps across their left shoulders and fluorescent 

under their right arms they would walk calmly up his path 

and down again then turn right off the Drive

out of sight along the lane around the back before

appearing again on the bridge down the cutting

and onto the Loan. 

                                  It cheered me to see them through 

that first sad summer then the turning back of the

clocks and the heavy snows and my first spring here

and sometime before the second winter the smaller

boy was gone and his brother already a close-cropped 

young man did the paper round on his own at the same pace.

Next season the old man stopped cutting his own lawn

one of his neighbours went into  residential care 

the other side had a second child by which time I had  homed in 

on  the best places  to find blossom 

                                                           bluebells

                                                                            autumn leaves.