These Streets We Know By Heart

As we walked the empty streets, these streets we know by heart,
the silence bubbled up from the ground and began to curl around us
like the steam that rises up from the hot pavement after a summer rain.
And the deafening stillness grew louder with each forward step.
It eventually gave way to the noise in my head,
the wonderful clatter from the swirl of dancing memories,
the ones that reside in every nook and cranny of this 300 year old place we call home.
They live in every piece of crumbling façade
where a fern has taken root and reached out for life,
around every brightly stuccoed corner,
and sit on every well worn door stoop.
The clip clop of horses, the mournful sigh of a saxophone reverberating in the distance,
the tinkling of silver and glass as it hits aged marbled tabletops,
the roar of a crowd as the brass band leads a second line for the newly-married
through these potholed filled streets, these streets we know by heart.
The memories leap to life in my head of the joyful times we’ve spent here,
on the happiest days of so many lives,
of the nights we walked these streets alone and playfully whispered to one another,
“Tonight, we are in Paris,” and let our imagination run wild,
and it wasn’t hard to fall in love again as we wandered along,
on these streets we know by heart.