A Childhood Poem

Do you remember the Cam Jansen book series about a little girl who solved crimes with her photographic memory?  She'd blink her eyes and take "pictures" of things she wanted to remember.  I read her stories as a girl and remember wishing I had a photographic memory, and making a point to soak in the things I wanted to keep—the sound of my mom singing on a Sunday morning at church, the smell of my dad's cologne when he dropped me off after one of his weekends. 

I think that's part of the reason most of my poems are memories.  It may also be why I ended up in Memory Keeping at Hallmark.

I thought it would be appropriate for the first poem I post to be a memory poem.  So, here’s a poem about transitioning from child to adult.

Peninsula at Raintree Lake

I ran away with Black Beauty

to a pine-tree-lined isle

behind my father’s house,

my back against a pine’s trunk. 

Needles stuck through my jeans

and sap glued pages together,

but it was my sanctuary.

I took engagement pictures

between those pines years later—

we leaned against their sturdy trunks,

smiled into our future,

and they shaded a welcome

for our marriage.

I heard they drooped with disease

a year ago and were cut down.

I haven’t returned to see

their remaining stumps surrounded

by weeds and dead needles.

I prefer to imagine them tall,

and me, secure in their shaded shelter.