Naïveté

When I was young,
In my naïveté I envisaged

Many children

Clinging to my skirts -

Not so much a matriarch,

More a Mother Earth -

With the days passing easily,

Laughing through flower-brimmed meadows,

Dabbling in leaf-shaded brooks.

A simple two-dimensional dream;

No shadows, few tears;

An idyll, all my own.

How the years

Have scurried by;

Grabbing me by the hand,

Dragging me through reality;

Windows flying open,

Horizons stretched;

Deep encounters.

Zeniths and nadirs.

No easy answers,

But always

Sunlight filtering through.

And the children?

Did I dance with them?

Oh yes.

And were there many?

Just two.....

Yet also many hundreds more.

And their laughter echoes down the river of my days.

Bet Washbrooke