The Go-Cart

Here in front of Old Rice School
(underneath arc lights)
the boys (the Cayuga Street Gang)
wait like candles on an alter- half lit.
We are bending over looking down
while Mike and his go-cart ready
the world for light.

None of us noticed it then, the
boy, girls...boozed, that twilight had sit:
how funny, it was like a festival-
a square rigged cart of steel, with
a motor on its back, made us hold our
breath, hoping our turn would come
next, to ride and drive this mad-mouse.

And then your turn came-counting
stopped, breathing regained-
I mean, you were different now, you
had the reins. I didn't care all that
much to drive and ride, that mad-mouse
around and around, the school-but more
so to be present, and feel the world in light.

No: 2387 (5-23-2008) Note: back in 1959, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Mike E. Siluk (my brother), had a go-cart, he was the talk of the neighborhood for that season, and perhaps well deserved. He had everyone in envy, but he worked hard to acquire the only co-cart (with his paper route money), this side of the Mississippi I bet. And Old Rice School, which was just up an old dirt alley from our home, was a great place to have a go-around runway for the go-cart. It seems nowadays, go-carts are almost everywhere not anything special, perhaps times have changed, but 'the world in light' or setting the world for us in a spark of light, hasn't change at least in memory and in this poem I tried to recapture that moment-or perhaps better put, to recapture back that extraordinary feeling. Yes indeed, those were special days. Dedicated to Mike Siluk.