The Chilhood's Door

[Guest guest]

The Childhood Door

by Howard E. Rawlinson

 

While I was yet a child, I knew a stream

That snaked its way

Through bushes, brambles, briers

Until it burst upon an open grassy glen.

This was my hide-away, my secret place

To which I stole to think my boyhood thoughts

To dream my boyhood dreams.

I sought it only during day, never after dark

If I had known of Shakespeare then and dared to go at night

I would have seen - I'm sure I would have seen

Titania, that fairy queen, laughing, leaping on the lawn

With Oberon. A fawn, I once found sleeping there beside the stream

And fairy necklaces that glistened in the sun.

Though I was one who had not learned the lore of fairy folk,

Still there were those who came to romp within my room at night

Who brought delight, who made my spirits gay.

They were real, as real to me as were my playmates of the day.

I did not ask them who their parents were,

Nor how it happened they could visit on the sly.

The pleasure of their presence there brought joy enough

Besides, a child learns early not to pry.

It's strange I never saw them in my secret spot

And I did not invite the ones with whom I played by day.

There lay within my mind the haunting thought

That if I brought them to my secret place,

The place itself might go away

Might vanish as my phantom friends of night would

Vanish at the sound of footsteps on the stair.

There beside the stream I listened to the waters

As they bubbled, burbled, gurgled as they swirled among the rocks.

I lay content to listen to their liquid lulling sounds

Sounds uttered as they muttered over stones

 

Sometimes their tones were sibilant and soft

As if they whispered lest I understand.

Sometimes they chatted, blatted, babbled loud

Defying me to pierce the shroud

Of meaning in the sentences they spoke.

One day I thought I heard a word,

Stirred, my body moved beside the stream

Canted ear to catch the sound

Found I almost understood the words the waters said--

An almost thing that teased and tantalized

Later, when I prized myself upon my knowledge of a foreign tongue

I found that while my mind sought meaning in the sound

I gained the word but lost the sense of sentence and of phrase

So was it when I heard the waters talk

The words I heard or thought I heard were

Like some half-remembered tune

That will not come to mind

Although one knows the tune lies just beyond the wall of knowing.

That night with glowing words

I told my parents what I thought I knew

My mother laughed a scornful laugh

My father drew my hand to his

And said it is a pity to contaminate your mind

With thoughts that things inanimate can speak

I said no more. I did not seek to penetrate their adult world.

But still the gift that I'd received

Lay curled around my heart locked forever in my secret self

They were my parents, wiser far than I.

But still, I knew the thing I knew

And something stirred within me and rebelled.

I quelled my anger, kept my secret in my secret place

Not even daring tell it to my friends.

 

Except for one, (the poets of the past would have pronounced her Fey)

A wisp of girl, pale-haired, pale-skinned, pale-eyed

Who lay beside me as we wriggled through the brush

Until we heard the rush of water over stones

Then she bent her head beside the stream

Turned enquiring eyes to mine and whispered,

" Do you understand the words the waters say? "

" They say that ere the spring is gone I shall be dead. "

Her tender fingers touched my cheeks

To brush away the tears that brimmed my eyes

" This is no time for sighs, " she said, " no time to grieve.

Although the words the waters say are true,

If you believe, I never shall be dead to you. "

I did not cry as I past by her bier.

Although a tear or two I shed

When no one else was nigh, she never had deceived

So I believed the words she'd whispered

On the bank that afternoon.

That very night she joined my playmates in my room.

But soon I knew, I do not know exactly how I knew,

That neither she nor they were flesh, nor blood, nor bones

Life often hones the blade of childhood wisdom to a sharpened edge

That cuts away the bright full world of fantasy

And I began to see but emptiness within my room.

Reality and logic ruled my mind

I could not find a place for fairy folk

For things which can't be measured, weighed, nor analyzed

I prized myself upon my knowledge of a golden mean

By which one tested everything that was,

Found evidence that it was real,

Or lacking such, acknowledged it was not.

There was no middle ground, no place for things unseen

 

No faith that moves the mountains to the sea

" What is, " the credo said, " is what it is,

Is what it was, and what it ever more shall be. "

More recently I've come to doubt the adult world

The way that world once doubted mine

And I consign their truths

To where they once consigned my truths

I find uncouth the rigid patterned mind

That is content with only what it touches, tastes, or feels.

Who kneels before an Altar pledges faith in things unseen

But often will deny that other things unseen can be.

I sometimes wonder if the faith which he vouchsafed so boldly there

In praise and Prayer is real to him

Or just a thing which grows to be a part of him

The way a wart grows on a finger or a nose.

Reality is never all that it appears

It's just a point of truth which moves from here to there

A light that gleams a moment then goes out,

A flickering shadow on a caveman's wall.

My fey companion never died at all

Although I buried her in later years

When fear of what the world might think of me bound me in chains.

Now there remains a second opportunity,

And I know truth is never just exactly what it seems.

It is a growing, living thing that changes

With the time, the tide, the place.

She tells me all about it in my dreams.

 

remember...........remember....remember.

..............bob