Simplest of Gifts

Though this road is different from the neighborhood I grew up in, it takes me right back. I remember how the tar in the street would bubble up through the cracks in the hot summer sun. I’d pop them with my fingers, burning them a bit and then wiping off the sticky residue on the pavement.
Seeing those cracks in the windy, cold, autumn air while walking to school, made careless, summer days feel like a lifetime away; stickball on the street, building forts from sticks in the woods and waiting for the bats to swoop down as evening ended the day.
Nothing announces itself here but it cannot be mistaken as nothing. The cracked road leads me in, the bare tree reaching up, and the distant houses hold their place here and in my heart… always. The simplest of gifts.