Three long blocks down the town's Peach Road,
Past Pelham Circle and Pearl--how the names come back!
It was out of a six-year-old's neighborhood,
Three times as far as I'd ever wandered. 
It was ragweed and goldenrod hot and sweet
And twice the height of the dog and me,
Exploring late summer territory--a maze
Of hollows and tracks, bindweed and morning glory.            
I followed Pete, the dog, perhaps, and he his nose
Tracing the passage of possums and mice.
The day comes back in dreams or waking forty years later --  
Nothing of my father's shouts or mother's tears
That must have sent me out of the house, or the knocking
On doors too early for Ria or Ann to be up,
But the smell of ragweed, wet in the morning,
The shine of spider webs, funneled and spoked,
The grasshopper big as my hand that spit brown juice,
The marbles, lost and nicked, I dug up and pocketed,
The pink in the throat of the blue morning glory,
The feel of the sun as the dog and I curled up
Easy in our weedy kingdom, dozing in the lap of the world.

This poem first appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.
Used here with the author’s permission.