How It Was

I spent my childhood

in love with home—

with the gold-emerald grasses that knelt under my feet

and stood again after I passed,

with the spring flowers in my mother’s garden,

violets, lily of the valley, daffodils,

their breath sweet, their faces washed in sunshine,

and later, the fairy roses that climbed the fence

and hobnobbed with the first cut hay;

with the rough rocks that lined the banks

of the small brook that cut a path

through barbed and tangled berry bushes,

ripe with bee-spun fruit;

with the bent branches of an old apple tree

I climbed on, pretending I was astride a unicorn;

with the dirt road that, once tarred over,

led me past neighboring farmland, past deep woods

where I would prowl, looking for signs of bear

or wild Indians, half Indian myself, walking toe first

through the crackling underbrush;

with the staccato tap of rain on leaves

the warm, green-brown scent of wet earth

and great equinoctial storms

that presaged the change of seasons;

with my small, cross-legged self,

small among the cornstalks,

watching a chipmunk forage for kernels,

and once, a stately antlered buck watching me;

with the drift and spin of painted leaves,

touched by the brush of frost

and the tented webs that glimmered

red and blue and glittering silver on September lawns;

with the first snowflakes whispering on a chill wind

with knee-deep drifts, and sleds,

and green Christmas mittens, up-turned collars

and scratchy scarves, snowpants that swished,

galoshes with frozen buckles that finally yielded

to small, determined fingers;

with March winds that rattled the old wooden shutters,

blew snow that piled in small drifts

on the window sills and etched icy ferns on the panes;

with the return of robins, blue eggs huddled in a nest

I could spy on from the upstairs window,

finding great comfort in the way

the parent birds looked after their young

until, at last, the babies flew.