There’s no one more patient
than a young boy out to catch
a fish in a net, eyes focused on
the target, slow steps barely
disturbing the water, ever so
carefully lowering his net;
and there is no elation greater
than a young boy raising his net
and broadcasting to us his fish
caught in an old fish net
retrieved from the shed.
there are no mythic creatures,
no unicorns or dragons, no
enchanted
wisps to lead us away, no elves
or pixies, dwarves or giants, no trolls
or wizards, just the silence they
left
behind when we outgrew them, our imaginations
turning rational, no place for
fantasies,
the fantastical, the unreal, no
manifestations
to explain what we couldn’t
understand,
couldn’t accept; happens as we age,
giving in,
as we do, to the realities of just
plain living,
no longer a necessity to look
beyond
ourselves to make sense of the
world.
But on those quiet nights, dark and
alone and pondering,
wondering about this life we’ve
lived, this world inhabited,
and listening in the silence we’ve
wrapped ourselves in,
we hear, perchance, their voices
returning, calling us, and maybe,
just maybe, we can see the faint
outline of who they were,
who they are, hidden among the
trees, rustling softly
through the gardens, the flowers
quaking on a breeze-
less night, a flicker of light we
try to rationalize away,
these voices singing a distant yet
all too familiar melody.
And in our fears and angers, in
life’s disappointments
and disasters, tired and wanting to
give up, something stirs
within, something fantastical,
irrational, throbbing in our very
being, our souls now illumined,
something primevally real, a need
arising, unexplainable, except by
childhood wonder, calling back
the wisps and pixies, trolls and
dwarves, a unicorn prancing,
pawing, and a dragon, giant wings
outstretched, flying low
over the lake, carrying us back to
an ancient castle and a wizard
conjuring up magic and the
creatures of old, their stories retold anew,
and we can start to believe again, start
to believe in life as we imagined
it to be, a life found only in fantasy, in mythical creatures returning.
Today,
the world waited,
perhaps watching
us
so small here,
sharing
this planet earth,
and she
wondered, a voice heard
on the wind, what
was
to become of us,
bent on destruction,
unable to sustain
our own selves here
in the midst of plenty,
taking and not giving back,
keeping to ourselves, repaying
nothing, our awareness come too
late.
Nature always
finds a way,
but, she ponders,
in our waste
and want and
unwillingness to care,
unwillingness to act, will we?
At two, she still fits
in the kitchen sink, on one side of a double stainless steel whose function was
dishes, not children. It’s not a large sink, by any means; she’s just small,
small enough at two to still fit, just as she had a year ago at one, though a
little snugger perhaps. Naked, she sits there in a couple of inches of cool
water, smiling, laughing, the warm air of summer surrounding her, warm summer
air blowing in the open door and out the open window.
And at two, her nakedness
– pink, puffy skin, “baby fat” – is not an issue, not a problem for her as it
might be for us, her parents, her grandparents, visitors passing through, for
naked is how she came softly crying into our lives, and at two … well, clothes
are just one more thing to bother with, one more thing to remember, things like
new words and colors and shapes and numbers, things like saying “I’m sorry” and
“please” and “thank you,” grown up things, “big girl” things.
But for now, “Kaycee,
put on your clothes” doesn’t faze her, for clothed or naked, at two, what’s the
difference? what’s it matter? What matters now, now more than then and more
than later, is sitting here in the kitchen sink, the cool of stainless steel
and a couple inches of water on a hot summer day.
And that is the essence of childhood, of being two.
And the rains came
softly falling,
an evening mist,
a
cleansing hush
descending into the silence
of summer’s darkness.
