It used to feel too big and mostly abandoned, leftover land between neighboring cul-de-sacs and the elementary school. Still, I would visit its few humble1 stations — the cracked stump by the fence always crawling with ants. The narrow space behind the garage lined with unused slate, just standing there waiting for my parents’ hands. Then there was the shady dirt under the old maple tree where I read, cradled or sinking between dying tentacle roots. Was there ever any glory there? I can remember a few humid evenings through the crack of the back door. Twilight hanging like a velvet curtain, the thinning pine trees at least only silhouettes. My parents would be at the top of the empty hill sitting at the rusty, wrought iron table, in an orb of orange candlelight. I knew they were eating artichoke with hot butter, scraping off the meat of the leaves with their teeth and just casting the rest away.

In the poem, the speaker is able to recall a positive memory about a backyard they weren’t particularly fond of. Do you think people tend to remember things more positively as they grow up? Why or why not? Do you have a memory that you remember more positively over time?