4622 Castle Crest Drive

Photo Credit: jeunited.com
I found an actual photo of the house my grandfather built on Google! I lived there till age 7.

4622 Castle Crest Drive–dVerse Open Link Night and Meeting the Bar

She rules—pristine white, glorious
as a crown on the skull of the hill.
Alone, inviolate. The stuff of which
childhood myths are made.

And I wove those stories, weave them still,
envisioning dry days of California summer,
days steeped, like my first glass of iced tea,
in sunshine, scrub brush, and scents of citrus.

Geranium blooms, red and slightly pungent
grow wild among yuccas that, most years, burst
into white blossoms on March 19th, St. Joseph’s day.
Predictable as the swallows coming home.

Eucalyptus trees surround my fortress,
stanchions holding the house and our lives
erect, until the day the fires trundle up
the ridge, and they erupt in rapture.

The room where I wake—beneath the crest—
Is the home of an almost-stranger—a man
who wears a sheet each year on Halloween as
Grandpa takes me door-to-door in his neighborhood

that cradles the base of my princess-world.
It’s different now, sixty-some years later. They’re
dead, the ghost and my dreams of royalty.
And someone painted my castle black.

I’m linking this to both dVerse Open Link Night and the Meeting the Bar I will be hosting this Thursday, February 7th. While dealing with computer issues and upgrades, I’ve made the difficult decision to cut back on the number of posts I do each week, as my priority right now is to get my second novel and a book of poetry out to agents. I will continue to be hanging around the Pub, but will post any prompt I respond to on OLN.

Here’s a hint for Thursday…dig back into those childhood memories and savor the details.

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