A Weathered Old Gate

 A Weathered Old Gate

A weathered old gate, nearly unhinged, creaks and cries as it swings in the wind.

A portal like this, if it could talk, would have stories to tell of who came down the walk.

These old stories are to me legendary, 

I will search my memory to see who made this journey.

While bouncing a ball on the fence down the walk,

I found then that the gate started to talk.

Talk? More like creak, as the rusty old hinges started to squeak.

You always knew without looking outside

When the wind was up, making the swinging gate shriek.

I and my siblings passed through it to school,

and sometimes would forget to latch it, as was the rule.

Sure enough, our dog Rover would follow us to school,

and often would end up in the office, under the principal’s rule.

So many times did this occur, that the dog was named school mascot, the principal’s Rover.

Door-to-door salesmen entered back in the day, swinging open the gate to make their play.

But as convincing as their sales pitch might have sounded,

for the encyclopedias, the housewares, or the life insurance they hounded, 

their pitch would be bounded by Mom’s rolling pin, as she escorted them out the gate again.

The gate, so creaky, has let in the creepy - ghosts and witches and trolls and zombies - 

all, it appears, living on candies.

But, of course, they hailed that annual scene, those little spooks of Halloween.

Many a mini-monster has our gate seen.

Why was that ladder hauled through the gate, on Christmas Eve for Pete’s sake?

Turns out my Mom was trying to put my little sister to bed,

but little Jeannie wanted to hear Santa arrive instead.

So my Dad put the ladder up, stomped on the roof, and yelled “Ho Ho Ho,”

So off to bed my sister did go.

My father, a do-it-yourselfer, once hauled a steel barrel through the gate,

and made of it a grill for chicken and steak.

So on summer weekends delicious smells wafted through the gate,

and the family always cleaned their plate.

My mother, a great cook, loved to feed anyone around,

even the garbage men making their rounds.

So when they pulled up and came through the gate,

she had sandwiches for them at the ready, and even some cake.

Nothing quirky about my Mom’s turkey,

but her Hungarian heritage brought out the szekely.

A goulash so good that we couldn’t stop 

before we cleaned out the whole blessed pot.

With my Mom’s good cooking, we all added weight,

But the gate still accommodated our increased state,

wisely made wider by my handy father.

Joyous occasions were graduations and weddings,

but also there were somber ones, life endings.

For all, the gate welcomed family and friends,

the gate wide open to usher them in.

A recent memory came through the gate, 

My wife arrived bearing a cake,

A cake with a number frosted on top,

the years we’ve been together, 48!