All about Childhood

For My Father


The fresh spill of spring rain,
transparent torpedoes on seedlings
and one paper boat set adrift
amidst rubber boots stuck in the mud,
Prussian pansies named for their faces
next to puddles of rose-petalled perfumes
concocted under a lilac lab next to the taste
of flowering-almond-apricot-jams
and mysterious books about bees.

Lavender-shards-of-worn-glass on the sill,
my father's hand wrapped around mine
on important excursions to nurseries,
followed by strawberry preludes to cricketed walks
j u s t before bed, when dreams fill tiny nights
with scarlet-skied faeries dancing on moonlit tomatoes
who gladly collect their forget-me-not colours
from all the dead flowers in front of the dawn,
there on the lawn, fortuitiously answering my question,
'where does it go?'.

And that hidden look in my father's eyes when no one was watching.
Little girls marry their dolls but never their daddies.

"If you gaze long into an abyss,
the abyss will gaze back into you."
(Nietzsche)