Childhood

These recollections with the scent of ferns

                                    Are the idyll of early years

                                      (Gregorio Gutierrez González)

Accompanying the hazy memories

Time so generously glorifies,

Returning to a welcoming heart

And flocking like white butterflies,

Come fantasies of happy childhood days.

Blue Beard, Little Red Ridinghood,

Lilliputians and the giant Gulliver,

All of you, floating in the mist of dreams,

Spread your wings, fly,

So I, the happy journeyer

Through storybooks, may summon you

To join with other, beloved characters.

O blessed youth! Eyes aglimmer

With dawning discovery

Follow the weary teacher’s hand

Across the big red figures

In the tattered primer,

Where traces of vague recognition,

Rewarding periods of youthful despondency,

Beneath indifferent shadows

Begin forming letters into words

On a dewy, white,

Luminous, restless August morning,

Helping a blazing sun rise

On wings of the breeze

Toward skies dotted with drifting clouds;

Listening to a grandmother’s

Exemplary fairy tales;

Skipping school

To organize a clamorous battle

In which rocks rattle like bullets

And a rumpled kerchief becomes a flag.

Constructing a manger scene

Of materials gathered from the woods,

Then, after the long, rowdy outing

Arranging the grasses,

Coral twigs, and treasured mosses,

And on strange and alien landscapes,

Perspectives never seen or dreamed,

Creating roads of golden sand

And waterfalls of gleaming tinsel.

Positioning the Wise Men on the hill

And overhead

The star that led them from afar;

In the crib, the laughing Baby Jesus

In his bed of

Softest mosses and leafy ferns.

Pristine soul, blush-pink cheeks,

Skin like ermine on the snow,

Flaxen curls,

Sparkling yet peaceful eyes, how fair

In memory the innocent babe!

Childhood, hallowed valley

Of blessed calm and coolness,

Where rays that will later blast our days

So softly shine,

How saintly your pure innocence,

How fleeting your brief happiness,

How sweet in hours of bitterness

To turn back to the past

And call upon those memories!