Neverland (ver. 2025)

In my younger clime,

Peter flew off the stage and out the window, bound

for Neverland, and we never questioned that, carried

away on happy thoughts and Pixie Dust, nothing more,

but try as I might, full of happy thoughts but short

of Pixie Dust, I remained grounded yet hopeful,

still believing we would lift off one day and follow

the second star to the right to the land of lost boys,

Mermaids and Pirates, Tinkerbell and Tootles,

 Indians brave, Capt Hook and a ticking crock.

But grown up, some, older and wiser and less easily tricked,

I vaguely remember the hidden wires barely visible

against the dark backdrop of a sky, a small detail

easily missed, easily forgotten, this man-made flight;

now flying was no longer possible, no rising off the floor,

and my childhood dreams were gone in waking, Pixie Dust

but the dust bunnies under my bed, swept away,

like youth, in my mother’s weekly cleaning.

But tonight, Peter has been outside my window, crowing, “er-er-e-er,”

and I felt myself rising again, a little, enough to remind me

of the happy thoughts, the Pixie Dust, and the second star

to the right, straight on till morning, and the world once more

seemed lighter, much younger, much more possible now

to fly without wires barely visible, for we can fly,

“we can fly, we can fly,” and I am again a lost boy returning,

Tootles and Tinkerbell, Capt Hook and a ticking crock,

the second star to the right and straight on to Neverland.