Looking through rose tinted 

Glasses.
Beneath Dublin city’s chimney stacks 

Lie cobblestones and old tram tracks 

The rag and bone man calling out

Children playing, scream and shout.
The milkman on his daily rounds

Tinkling glass the bottle’s sound

Robin with his beak did press

On silver cap the cream to get.
At Christmas we’d gather there

Under the tree the presents share

Parcels wrapped for everyone

Forget your troubles have some fun.
In those days a little mattered

Dolly prams, fire engines scattered

Christmas Day a real occasion

Before the technical invasion.
Off to mass, brand new clothes

Woolly socks no naked toes

All wrapped up against the cold

Snowball fighting, young and old.
How innocent were we back then

No gadgets to confuse our brain

No insolence or talking back

A wooden spoon with you would smack.
Things are all different now

Children’s lives have changed somehow

No interest in the wind up toy

Lost I think that simple joy.
©j.black (wordverse.me)

                @jphoto7