In Childhood
~ Kimiko Hahn
things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?
things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?
***
I seem to have lost my camera and have lost my sense of equilibrium with it. I've had to use an iphone and Charly's little junior Kodak number to capture the moments, and there have been plenty of memorable and beautiful ones over the past few weeks. The autumn tones in Canberra's old streets, merriment in the backyard over the Easter break and abundant other daily vignettes reminding me that childhood is fleeting. Clothes have become outgrown and conversations more mature. Decisons about high school loom. I want to capture every second before it disappears. Oh, where is Peter Pan?
Oh, where is my Canon Ixus?
