Recovering Childhood

Obligations of adult life
Fulfilling purpose
The sanctity of vocation
Deadlines, schedules, pressures
Responsibilities honored
Providing shelter, comforts
Familial warmth and security
Yet …

How precious are childhood memories
How vibrant the smells
How vivid the colors
The seasons, the weather
How fresh and new
Amplified by acute senses

How free we were
With only one rule
Be home before the street lights lit

All free time was spent with friends, outdoors
Exploring, playing, riding bicycles
Finding tadpoles in streams
Dirt clod wars with neighboring blocks
Building kites, airplanes, rockets
Scratch games of every sort
And books to carry us away

We lived as immortals
As if it would never end
Scrapes and bruises were nothing
The low cost of admission

Now, though as senses dull
I catch a whiff of freshness after rain
Or a spectacular sky
Or flowers arrayed magnificently
And I’m carried back to those days
When I’d lay in a grassy field for hours
Finding shapes in the clouds or stars

How thankful I am for childhood
How wonderful to occasionally revisit
Memories that reappear
I will not mind the loss of short term memory
If I may keep the glorious ones forever