Claire V. Bogdanos

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.