Barely out of blindfold days, a babe aghast and grasping
Still wearing an integral heart secured by mother’s hasping
Unmindful of all promises by needs to be outnumbered
I clambered then through liberty, concerned but unencumbered
Though like an angry puritan the sky may thrust a scowl
I was all spent on dazzling dreams beneath my infant’s cowl
A sliver in God’s marquetry? Was I a slotted chip?
No! I beset that world with sight held knotted in my grip
The kumquat shone for me alone, the loquat craved my love
I’d swear the ground would pine for me if danced I not above
Thought I the jays and cardinals would learn to lisp my name
Thought I the mountains longed to hand me all their beauty’s fame
* * *
Stop! What craven infantry would on my haven lurch?
And with such brute unpolished boots her countenance besmirch?
You hold an unfamiliar gait, and what unseemly games
I’ll hand you to my father now, inform me of your names
Cold? Loss? Emptiness? Inconstancy? Derision?
What language are you speaking now? Uncertainty? Division?
I asked my two progenitors what travellers are these
Who march upon my paradise with such unbridled ease?
Life? No. No. No. Life is in the trees
The feather in the ear that brings me giggling to my knees
Life is watching brother chasing beetles in the pool
It’s treacle tart, and conker-ing, and riding after school
* * *
Really I believed them then as I believe them still
I see an apple is a core but when I’ve had my fill
Perhaps remaining mindful of which aperture is chosen
You tell me, are the roses thorned, or are the thorns just rosen?
I still believe my primal heart as I believed it then
It’s fleet as any thoroughbred loosed timely from its pen
Untiring lithe it keeps me blithe, enquiring all along
Awake but softly sunken deep in some perpetual song
A long familiar voice it was bid doubt unhand my fate
Restore to me my golden world and timidly abate
It’s rightly mine as it is yours, I’m yours as you are mine
We’re coupled to this merry lot with courage as our twine
By: Sumangali Morhall
January 2005