Kodak Colors

Dancing through the sprinkler,

Making ice cream on the lawn;

Summers last forever

In those boyhood days long gone.

Winters by the fireplace,

Silver-tinseled Christmas trees,

Cocoa in the kitchen:

Such sweet yesterdays are these.

Faded shades in Kodak

Color childhood memories,

Time tarnishes the tears

Dulls down sorrow by degrees.

Till you’re left with pictures

And bright moments in your mind;

All anguish of young years

Left deliberately behind.

If we let truth guide us

And remembered how youth hurt,

Would we see with clear eyes?

Toss nostalgia to the dirt?

Easier to recall

As such simpler saccharine days,

Painless just to think back

Through a reminiscent haze.

We shy from honesty,

Hide hard truths up high on shelves,

Keep closer to our hearts

Tender lies we tell ourselves.

From the breakfast table

Until tucked in at bedtime,

Each day’s paradise lost,

Segued into sleep sublime.

We say we would go back

And be children if we could,

How can years so bitter

Become so misunderstood?

Friends who say they hate you,

Boys who never let you play;

Punishment and penance,

These all contradict cliché.

Homework, chores and curfews

Secret plots to run away,

Yearning for acceptance

Are what filled our childhood days.

We banish remembrance

All but dreamlike Kodak scenes,

Cling to happy moments

But stay blind to what they mean.