Porch Lights Along Lillian Avenue

Lyrics

Seven forty-five. 
Saturday.
The last of the heat leaves the asphalt.

There goes the first one. 
Number 782. 
That yellow bug light. 
Old Mr. Henderson's dog, Lucy, lifts her head from the painted gray boards, her tail gives one slow thump, then she lets her head fall again. 
Another bulb sparks to life across the street. 
A 60-watt promise. 
A single note played on a quiet instrument.

And this is how the day ends on Lillian Avenue. 
Not with a shout, but a switch being flipped. 
Porch by porch, the street says its goodnight. 
A slow, glowing chain of... we are home. We are here.

The wind shifts south. 
It carries the smell from Murphy Avenue. Hops and malt, like warm bread baking for the whole west side. 
Behind these houses, a bicycle clicks down the BeltLine trail. 
And farther off, the freight train rumbles on the CSX line, the same low hum that shook the windows of the men from Mechanicville who built these bungalows.

And this is how the day ends on Lillian Avenue. 
Not with a shout, but a switch being flipped. 
Porch by porch, the street says its goodnight. 
A slow, glowing chain of... we are home. We are still here.

I look at the 1926 Sanborn map sometimes. 
This street was just a dirt track then. 
Just a line behind the trolley. 
And I think of the lights that stayed on through 1978, when the banks drew their red lines. 
Through 1994, when the papers wrote us off. 
The names we don't have in the record, for the families who refused to go dark. 
Whose front doors just kept glowing, a quiet faith in the copper wire, a stubborn belief in the morning.

There goes the last one. 
Now it's just my own light on the swing. 
The whole street is breathing. 
In the blue twilight. 
And out. 
Goodnight, Lillian. 
Goodnight, Adair Park. 
Goodnight.