An Old Dirt Road (1958 -1962)) A Poem on Reflections))

An Old Dirt Road
1958 -1965

By Dennis L. Siluk



Some how I think, but I’m not sure, perhaps it is just me,
we all go back sometime and try to find that place in time
that says in your mind: “I wish I was back there!”
Or “Yaw, those were the good old days.”
Or “How did I get here, from way back there?”
I guess I could go on and on, but you get the picture,
Some things we just never forget. And it is surprising
what they can turn out to be, for me, an old dirt road.

(When I went back there, it never changed,
it remained the same, after forty-years!)

If you’ve ever felt like that, listen up, focus,
you are not alone, I was a soldier once, a soldier, in trying times
it was back in sixty-nine, from Fort Bragg, to Germany to
Vietnam, to Italy, and them some, but the Old Dirt Road
where I grew up, along side of it,
I never forgot, and as I used to walk it to its top,
I’d talk to the Lord, then catch the bus, go on to school,

Yes, oh yes, I can see myself walking through my backyard,
jumping over grandpa’s fence, or walking around it,
way back when; up that old dirt road I’d go,
to Rice School (it isn’t there anymore; nor did I attend it,
it was just at the top of the hill when I was young);
along the edge of the road, some houses still remain
some gone, some renovated it seems; still old barns,
turned into garages, as it was way back then.

In those far off days, I suppose in the 20s and 30s,
it was used for buggies with horses (the Old Dirt Road);
in my time, back in ‘58, a few cars, and my young feet.

It was a rough and jagged road; no car could have gotten down it
completely, not all the way, not without endangering
its under structures, floor boards, tires, shocks, and so on.

I loved that old dirt road, and now that I think of it,
possibly part of the reason could be, it served me:
almost traffic free, gave me time to think,
I was at peace; it was just Him and me.

As I walked the old dirt road, back in 1958, perhaps to ’62,
I was but eleven-year old when I started, back then.
I’d pick out a piece of grass from the side of the road
(a weed) like my mother used to do, put it in my mouth,
walk up to its top, and talk to my angel friend,
Jesus too, some forty-years ago.

Yes, be it under the sun, rain or snow, a simple piece of grass,
on an old dirt road, talking to God, listening,
answering His questions,
they were simply ones back then.

Originally written 9-2001, complete 11/8/2001 (put into poetic form 3-31-2007)