Thinking of West Chester PA

I was going to drive to my hometown, West Chester PA, today, but changed my mind.
It snowed again last night, and show showers and bitter cold winds dominate the day.
I'll go tomorrow. But travelling to West Chester always makes me think of my parents,in the summer days when we went to Longwood Gardens, and the winter nights
in the kitchen at supper. I wrote a poem about that a number of years ago:


Four Thousand Suppers


At the kitchen table
at six o'clock.
Dark winter evenings
with my father in his winter underwear,
quilted like an astronaut.
Blue summer evenings
after my mother called my name
on the lilting breeze
which reached me
at far corners of the neighborhood,
her voice known
among all the others.

We ate four thousand suppers
in that small room together.
What did we discuss?
Linoleum and carpet, casement windows,
the wild McElroys,
the loud Mrs. Supportas,
scenes from the fifth grade,
my problems with bushels and pecks.

Four thousand suppers -
oceans of tea.
The man and woman at the table
grow grey.
I grow up -
feet finally
reach the floor.