Side Streets

I’ve come to admire side streets.

They dissect neighborhoods

filled with dogs rambling fences

and cats napping window sills.

I’ve come to admire side streets

where urban farmers grow

P-patch gardens with vegetables 

and flowers as odes to self-sufficiency.
Some residents have more recently taken to raising

chickens, ducks and honeybees.

Side streets teem with life

different from bustling arterials

and concrete freeways. 

On those, people skitter to work
or shop their hurried lives,

rarely slowing except for coffee,
fast food or congestion.

I admire side streets where

residents rock in porch chairs,

lean fences in hiatus conversations
and young mothers wheelbarrow
infants in tripod strollers.
Here the labyrinth sounds of lawnmowers, 

children and wind rustle through trees.
Here fathers labor over home-remodel
projects, wrestle with car engines or
shoot hoops with sons and daughters. 

There is a tortoise pace of smiles

and acknowledgements…friendly

waves when passing by and a hope

that you may meet again.