I thought myself alone one day
When voices soon came out to play
They called my name and cheered me on
Return with them to times long gone.
I dreamt I was transported back
To childhoods trust and angers lack
To days of joy when friendships grew
And sharing dreams were things we knew.
Then I awoke to noise and din
Into our world engrossed in sin
I wish I knew how to return
To that safe place of love and learn !
I’ve seen the little children play
Around the park along the way
I’ve heard their jumbled shrieks of glee
While hiding there behind a tree !
They laugh and skip and jump and run
It’s heart warming to see such fun.
Sometimes I feel the strongest yearn
To be a child who can return
I’d put my grownup cares away
Just to be young for one last day !
I’d often thought when I was young
Of all the songs that children sung
As in the morn they’d skip to school
And chant about the golden rule.
These songs were full of magic things
And bursting with imaginings,
Like fairy wings, angelic bells
And pirates gold that time foretells !
A scary bit ’bout Halloween
And “little” folk we have not seen
Or frogs that speak and brooms that fly
A dish and spoon that dance on high !
Oh, how much fun childhood has seen
One might pretend to be a queen
And I could wish for one more chance
To meet my prince and find romance !
Have I said that I am proud to be Jersey born and bred ? Well I am ! Back in the 30’s we still had small pockets of Lenni-Lenape Indians along the Metedeconk River near Cedarwood Park ( no running water ). You will notice that I’ve previously mentioned this fact because it connotes “delicately ” that we lacked indoor plumbing. But very CLEAN outhouses ! Also sometimes very COLD !! And my great grandma, “economist” that she was, used the tissue- like pages of catalogs such as Sears for “service roll”. She had heavy black wire from the house hung on huge tree limbs with sockets containing bare bulbs for outdoor lighting especially on the stone pathways to the garage fitted out for the summer visitors, the large hand pump for outdoor uses like brushing teeth, bathing and laundry AND the facility for “nature’s call” which was amongst the pines, out of necessity ! I sure loved my grandma, I know I was her favorite and ONLY great grandchild. She rose about 5 in the morning to bake her daily bread, I would tip-toe down those wide stairs to the kitchen to have my breakfast each morning. A treat I have never forgotten, a thick slab of warm homemade bread slathered with whipped sweet butter ceremoniously dipped into the huge crystal bowl that held the sugar accompanied by a heavy ironstone mug of foamy chocolate. Who had it better ? She’d had 7 living children, 5 of whom never left home ! I may have inherited her strong resolve and independent nature. You think ? I never heard her raise her voice except to God and thanks to Eastman Kodak, I still have the old camera AND precious photos!
Sincerely, Claire B.
I’d like to tell you how things were when I was but a child
The values that were taught to us in lessons bold yet mild
Where honesty and fairness and true courage was the way
To learn to love each other and show kindness every day .
Somehow we’ve lost that purpose we can’t seem to get it back
We find ourselves defeated and subjected to attack.
I feel sad for little ones living in this hostile clime
Will they survive tomorrow or through out the rest of time ?
It’s a lonely kind of story in which they have been caught
To never find the glory in the rules that they’ve been taught
It’s a hapless sort of reason that just may see the end
Of a world in its last season unless it learns to bend.
I’ve loved you God since I was small
Because my Nana told me so.
I loved you when I grew quite tall
And heard the stories I now know.
Because she said you did it all
With kindness and a loving heart
And meant the world to heed your call
To love each other from the start.
I wish I’d learned how not to stall
I’ve tried to follow where you go
The path is long most seem to fall
I know, my Nana told me so.
Poor old teddy bear, waiting tired and time-worn
Reminding me of many nights spent too forlorn,
We have seen better days when your soft coat was new
And all the dreams we dared to dream seemed overdue.
I put away my childhood toys as I grew old
Because I’d sought the happiness that futures hold.
While childish hopes are based upon small simple things
They fade into the lonely past that growing brings.
Sometimes I wish, with all my heart, I could recall
That yesteryear, so long ago, when I was small.
There’s a precious amount of brief security
In loving a teddy bear who loves only me.
I choose to remember when I was a child
That the streams fell o’er rocks running free and wild
And trickled neath the garden wall
Through crevices that time installed.
The spattering rain bore a scent of pleasure
That’s stored in my mind like a hidden treasure,
These simple joys which I once knew
With passing years much fonder grew.
Some mornings I’d lie on the side of the hill
While the wind whistled tunes that sent me a chill,
With quick’ning pace fleet life had lent
I wondered where that springtime went.
Small prickly green spikes rushed to cover the ground
Bold to herald new seasons the year had found,
Those terms I’d based my life upon
Too soon before my youth had gone.
Each brook seemed to flow as though thought were inane
While crooning a song with a wistful refrain,
I tread beach sand so clean and white
And sadly kissed each day goodnight.
I marveled at clouds that decided to play
In the midst of a hot sultry August day,
First they were blue then rose then pink,
Plum in time for that sun to sink.
The fields wore a garland of flowers in bloom
With cascades of blossoms to sweeten the gloom,
I touched the frost that capped the sea
As the summer’s length swept past me.
I awoke with mixed chatter of migrant birds
To witness God’s errand that needed no words,
I laughed with glee when autumn came
Cause I’d heard of October’s fame.
The perfume of burning leaves since done away
Was the smouldering ash of another day,
Now I’ve grown old I still recall
Those umber leaves that echoed fall.
On overhead boughs naked and shivering
Lay remnants of nests in the wind quivering,
While logs and twigs were known to sleep
All winter long in snow knee-deep.
Soon white flakes that grandeur knew obscured the sky
While I with quick breath did watch the last bird fly,
The years are gone but not the thrill
Forget that time, I cannot still.
There was heart to smell and feel and taste and see
Perhaps question what life was offering me,
Why must truth hide behind a mask
To yield unwon its precious task?
Sometimes when I am at my ease
A simple odor treads the breeze
And from the past some mem’ry brought
Across my mind in homely thought
That waits upon those childhood days
Where knowledge grows and friendship strays.
I’m not so sure that as I’ve grown
My youthful fears have all but flown,
However names I can’t recall
Will ever plague my portrait wall
And recollections I connote
May brim my eye or catch my throat.
And if I choose to chance forget
Some dream that’s had no ending yet,
One face that lingers on may cling
To fragile moments spread with spring,
Now bearing neither ache nor rage
Becomes the privilege of age.
There’s a special place that I now recall
Both secret and safe in a garden wall,
Far my favorite space when I was small
Was that wooden gate in the garden wall.
And there beneath that garden way
One million tears were washed away
And drained themselves into the ground
To gain the solace I have found.
When I’ve spied a spot with a hidden door
That may lead to the rest I’m reaching for,
The sight of a hedge by a garden gate
Is the knowledge that mellows oft too late.
One entrance in a crumbling wall
Was childhood’s fancy to recall
While shadows cast upon the ground
Did guard the peace that patience found.
The permanence I ‘d felt inside that gate
Where no words alone could ever relate
In the simple fare of my life would be
Like an endless rope of eternity.
I’ve often thought as I recalled
The lonely times when I was small,
I’d lift my wings and follow play
And swing my early cares away.
Ten thousand timeless heads bobbed in the breeze
And shook in the wind and laughed in the trees,
Amidst delphiniums all blue and pink
I’d wait for that sun to just rise or sink
To seek what hides past that garden wall
Where hollyhocks grew so bright and tall,
There beyond the pulse of nature’s lush
Life slumbered deep in a twilight’s hush.
There’s many a gate in many a wall
That has been childhood’s option to recall
When time’s swift shadow played hide and seek
My simple fears had some courage to speak.
Full many a turn has come about
Since those youthful years pursued by doubt
Where the wishing days of life would be
Bound to each one’s goal with piety.
Now much time has flown and it’s far too late
To play in the yard and swing on the gate,
For the wall is gone and there in its place
Structures of brick with no smiles on their face.
Portals of magic beckon still
With aspirations dreams fulfill,
The useful aim of one’s end should be
Some gate that waits for posterity.
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Claire V. Bogdanos 