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Poem: “Come With Me”

Come With Me

Come with me to where the Milk House Ford
Is paved with cobbles, now so long ignored,
But once the wagons crossed and climbed a grade
To Seventh Street, a country road in shade

Blue-white milk that rocked inside the cans
Carried up to where a Safeway stands,
But then a store with yellow wheels of cheese,
Cracker barrels, apples, bins of peas

No so long ago, a hundred years
A little more, another hundred nears
When we will be forgotten as were they:
A century is counted day by day

Those who drove the wagons, dipped the milk
Have faded like a water mark on silk,
And those who stopped to watch the wagons cross
Are long forgotten, like the wagons lost

As shadows are forgotten as they slide
Along the ground although they never died,
So images of those who lived I see
Not faded, living, standing next to me

There’s the wagon rattling, and the reins
Held loosely in the hand, the sound remains,
The shallows of the creek, the cobbles wet,
The images of old, I see them yet

Pavel
September 11, 2011


Pavel Chichikov is a Washington DC-based poet and photographer. He has written for both the secular and the Catholic press on issues as diverse as Russian nuclear weapons systems, Olympic athletes, and miracles. His books include From Here to Babylon: Poems by Pavel Chichikov,  Lion Sun: Poems by Pavel Chichikov, Mysteries and Stations in the Manner of Ignatius, and Animal Kingdom. Pavel may be heard reading his works on catholicradiointernational.com and on pavelreads.com. His poetry regularly appears on "The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov."