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Charles Hansmann

The Recycling Center

My father walks slowly as we leave the house now empty of all but his needs. He tells me again the stories that were new to me when I listened as a boy, important to him again, stories of his boyhood and early setting up, by which I once learned the workings of a world that reported all its wonders. Our daily walk follows a soft lane that skirts the marsh behind a plant where discarded paper is trucked and processed. He? Tolerant of the renegade fly-aways that litter our path and points out from time to time the signs that nature takes this in stride.

a turtle poking
its nose into
an old edition