Carousel Princess - For Kaycee

The horses prance lightly on a carousel track,

frozen and still, forever prancing around and around.

Their painted saddles and bridles gleam and come alive

with carousel light and a calliope of music.

And riding a brass pole, up and down and up again,

they convey the children into a world of imagination,

a world of their own creation, their laughter and glee

ringing the air, their tiny hands clutching tightly

that brass pole for safety, surety, as they race

the circle of the carousel, reaching out for a brass ring

to claim their prize, proclaim themselves as victors.

But she’s content to ride the sleigh, curved and carved,

a regal coach pulled behind carousel horses prancing,

this private carriage no fairy godmother appearing

can conjure up from pumpkin and mice;

she smiles and waves with each revolution,

satisfied to be carried magically toward a castle,

a royal ball, a Prince Charming of her own, lost

in her own Princess world, unconcerned by the other children;

and the rest of the world sleeps, looking on,

awaiting love’s first kiss, the stroke of midnight’s

clock, and the spell of childhood to be broken.

Soundscape

At night, after the lake has settled itself

and smoothed its rough waters to a satin sheet

glimmering now the moon’s pale reflection,

the only sound is the crunch of my own footsteps

on the loose gravel of my yard, a soft grinding

of heel and toe scuffed across the driveway,

and the cicadas’ steady hum in the still air

ringing ‘round me, background noise on a soundless night

interrupted only by the deep, sharp gulp of a bullfrog

calling from the swamp beyond, a primordial discourse

softly echoing, an ancient voice rising up, crying out.

Pastoral Snapshot

Down the road and around the bend and I am transported magically back to the countryside of my youth, a rural time of pastoral endeavors untouched by progress. There are no gasoline engines roaring, smoking and choking the air, nor any high technology that would focus my senses for me with lurid detail, leaving nothing to my imagination, so unlike my so long-ago youth that alerted my senses, heightened them to new wonders, sights and sounds and smells. The wind, clean and clear, blew through the forests and fields in those youthful dreams I wandered in in search of nothing more than the sensation, the experience of wind and forest. The smells were pungent and sharp, earthy to my open nostrils, breathing in deeply, and the touch of meadow grasses soft on my legs, bare skin lightly tickled as I lie there staring skyward, the clouds abstracting into familiar shapes on a blue background.  The sun glowed warm on my face, and the sweet scent of daisies excited my nose; this was the magic of my youth, bright again in a vivid memory of an age gone by.

Sandbox

The world of man shrinks to a sandbox

in the global world of children,

a four foot universe of sand

marked off by pine-board boundaries

squared smartly at the corners,

or even a new plastic one, turtle-shaped and round;

what’s important is the sand and what you have,

all that you need: a new plastic bucket

and an old bent spoon, a round yellow sieve

to sift the sands together, bright colored tools

scaled down to smaller hands and simpler minds

that can create their own worlds

out of tiny grains held together by innocence.