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Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Childhood



Childhood was riding my bike
for miles outside of town,
laying it beside a gravel road
and walking in the mountains
among the thin dusty lodgepole pine,
unafraid of rattle snakes.
I would sing my way up the slope,
drink from an irrigation trestle,
breathe in the scent of hot earth,
pine cones and summer,
then turn around and walk back down,
still singing.

Once I encountered a herd of cows on a hill,
who fell in behind me, enchanted by my song,
hoping I was leading them home to the barn,
disappointed faces watching me over the fence
as I picked up my bike and rode away.

Childhood, a time of pent-up silenced emotion
in a bursting chest, let loose by music,
singing for hours upstairs in my tiny hot bedroom,
LP's spinning on a small box record player,
and more dreams than
one beating heart could contain.

Nature and music: twin themes,
that have companioned my life:
wonder, laughter, dreams,
bathed in the scent of
weeping willow, bull-rushes and lake-ripples,
forever echoing in a vagabond heart
deepened with the remembering.

For Elizabeth's prompt at isojournal: the wonder of childhood. Day 6, kids.


10 comments:

  1. You have clearly had a lifelong love affair with Nature that is so beautiful to read about through your words....and I absolutely love this line: "and more dreams than
    one beating heart could contain."

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  2. I'm so glad you had those moments of wonder in your childhood. I can hear your voice, see that sparkle in your eyes. Long live that enchantment.

    Elizabeth

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  3. Yes, this is lovely, Sherry. Childhood. I wish I could go back sometines.

    Pamela

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  4. Oh, you captured so many moods and emotions and always the questions of heart~ This heart part-never ends~! Wonderful, Sherry~

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  5. You capture childhood wonder so beautifully!

    Sarah Allen

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  6. "and more dreams than
    one beating heart could contain." so full of innocence...beautiful Sherry...

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  7. Feel so deprived, as I realize, my childhood was spent, on long solitary walks, upon the highway sides, looking for pop and beer bottles and cans, intermixed, with the odd dollar bill, I would find. Anything, to get away from home, and the hostile environment, I had to live in.

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  8. I am envious of that childhood filled with nature and music Sherry ~ Those were the good old days ~

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  9. Just love those carefree memories, Sherry.

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  10. What lovely memories of childhood and so beautifully written. I share some of those memories myself, we are blessed.

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