At the confluence of land, sea, and air
Is the house I grew up in, and became a man.
The soundtrack of my life begins for me there
Where the sound of a lazy Saturday afternoon
Was the distant floating slow trombone slide note
Of a tiny twin-engine plane high overhead
Occasionally punctuated by the rattling angry drone of a helicopter
Or the sweeping white noise of fighter jets on their way to Macdill,
Possibly the origin of my love for synthesizer music.
At first, you had to stand outside to hear the waves
Until the dock was built, and they would slap against it
Or the sailboat we had for a while,
And at the first sign of a storm, the winds would bang
The screen door shut, and blow sand or anything else loose.
But as the Australian pines grew taller each year
The wind would whisper through their lofty branches
Until the day one fell on a neighbor’s roof
Then they all had to come down for good.
All the boats that ever passed were sailboats and rowboats
Until they put the channel markers in
Beside the watery ditch from which our very street
Had once been dredged, to let us build our home.
After that, the channel was a highway
For speedboats racing up and down the shore
Where once the loudest sound had been
The explosive exhalation of a porpoise surfacing at night.
Then in front, out in the street I’d hear another sound:
The bump-bump of tires hitting the manhole cover.
In all the years that I lived there, I never understood
Why I’d so often hear cars race down to the end of the cul-de-sac
Only to turn around and race right back out
A bump-bump going in and another returning
Way too fast to be sightseeing or looking for waterfront property.
Did they miss the No Outlet sign, or were they just lost?
With cars in front, boats out back, and planes overhead
While the wind rustled branches in the tall trees
(Even after the Australian pines came down, there were others:
From a distance, it looked like our house was in a jungle)
This defined the sonic landscape of my youth.
And once a year I make a pilgrimage back
On a friend’s birthday, to his mother’s house,
And after the party, I drive another block or so
Back to the street where I became a man.
As I drive by the old house
I’m now the bump-bump in the street
Though unlike the ones I remember, I’m in no hurry to leave.