streetwise
When I look at
the photograph of my father
sitting
slightly sprawled out on a bench in the back garden
he grew up in,
a place I often visit
so as to walk in
the same streets, study the erect
frontages and stroll
in the inlaid parks he used to play in,
it strikes me
that the young boy with the mop of
blond hair and
the bright eyes must have been a dreamer.
A stranger
maybe in this neighbourhood where gangs
stood on every
street corner ready to intervene
if anyone dared
venture across invisible borders.
Borders that I
do not know, but he perhaps
did. In the
yellowing picture I have seen of him his
gaze betrays
nothing of how streetwise he was.
On the
contrary, he is looking towards something far off,
perhaps the
kitchen window on the third floor, or Ekeberg Hill.
To look at the
photo of my father from the time he was a paperboy
reminds me that
he was the one who taught me
to cross the
street diagonally, at full pelt towards the traffic.
This gave those
driving in the next lane a bit more time
to brake, so as
not to attack us from behind.
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