And I would be a child again

When I was a child, I thought,

thought not so deeply as to

cause a sleepless night

and never deep enough to

set the world from wrong to right.

Enough it was, that friends and I could play 

lighthearted through the summer days.

Hiding out in secret places,

playing hopscotch, running races,

sailing paper boats in streams

and making things come true with dreams;

as overhead, high in a cloudless sky

the future passed us carefree by. 

Thus, I would be a child again,

set free, a spirit, consummate, divine;

at one with others of my kind,

as lyrical in heart and mind 

our thirsty lips and dusty, 

sun-kissed feet, basked in the 

thrall of high mid-summers heat,

as time spoke quietly, drew us in

 and the world turned slowly, 

spin on spin. 

With posthumous thanks to Philip Larkin,

for the first line of this poem. 

Reviews

[Beccy]

Thank you WK. I am hoping that the sentiment springs from watching Charlie, rather than a too early descent into my second childhood. :)

Beccy.

[W.k.kortas]

Who among us never feels such a pull? Wonderfully built piece--flows just so, the rhyme wholly unobtrusive, and the tone and content suffused with the gentleness of childhood. Fine, fine stuff.