Short Lived Dreams

a song in the front yard pg 2412

I think the first line of the poem says a lot about not only her, but how a lot of people feel. Kids who do not want to make their parents upset at them tend to walk the so called "straight and narrow." They play by the rules 95% of the time but every once in a while thy turn around to look and be envious about what they think is freedom from everything that keeps them bound to their lifestyle. When your a bad boy or girl, it is expected that if you screw up, it is blamed on your characteristics. But when you strive to be good and do the right thing, you are a failure or there must be something not right in the head if you make a mistake. The straight and narrow people have enormous amounts of pressure resting on their shoulders. They scream deep inside their minds to just let it go!

In the first stanza, Brooks wants to go to the back yard were the weeds grow. The weeds are bad for a lawn, so the weeds represented in this poem are the immoral, tough, rough, and free people and they could be the children whose parents don't really care what their kids are doing or were they are at. These people are free from everyday obligations in life. Brooks is tired of doing the right thing. It is a lot to deal with when you are a child. "Do this", "Don't do that", "Go to your room", "Take out the garbage", "Clean the kitchen", and don't even think about talking back are some of the typical things most children hear during the course of a 24 hour period. Looking at this through an an adults eyes is easy to, you don't have to report to a butt hole boss everyday, you can just do what you want, when you want.

In the third stanza, Brooks makes it very clear that she is talking about a child's life or possibly her own. She tells her mother that the kids have some wonderful fun. They don't have to go to bed by nine and they do not report to anyone. Brooks is just admiring the freedom that the kids seem to have. She even takes it a step further in the fourth stanza to say that she wants to walk the streets with the black-lace stockings and put paint on her face. Through a child's eyes this might look appealing from the everyday routine that they go through but as children get older they realize that if they don't play by a set of rules, life can get really hard. I think it is safe to say that most kids go through this and grow out of it.

Can you tell that I have been here and thought of that? We all have short lived dreams.