My morning walk

takes me past landmarks

no longer there:

Coe Primary,

where I attended first and second grade,

now offices.

Down the street,

third and fourth grade gone.

Only a park remains

Last year,

May Street School razed,

replaced by a brick campus.

Where children

flocked like sparrows, empty;

silenced now by The Contagion.

A bulldozer parked

in a muddy playground

never played.

and yet, it is spring;

flowers bloom, the trees leaf out in green.

Birds singing,

they will continue so,

long after I

can no longer hear.