Sidewalks

Lately, as I've wandered around the Avenues I've contemplated the sidewalks. These concrete ribbons, in some places, are the same paths I walked as a child. The summer the crews replaced the walk along Wyoming Street left a bumpy surface, now heaved with roots and age. Relatively new sidewalk on Avenue H seems lacking in character, clean and free as it is from scratched in names, tiny handprints or the feathery tracings of a leaf. Meandering along here and there are footprints, the shadows of shoes long out of style, permanently imprinted in the cement.