The Faraway Country

Sweet innocent years are without a doubt forever gone,
like sunrays slipping through fingers.
But glimpse it in rosy winds and gilded leaves—look there,

a child plays pirate, prince, piranha;
ball along the sidewalk; ball over the receding horizon,
around the Amazon, Britannia, and the seas of Attica;
until the clock strikes six and the spell evaporates.

A child’s laugh is bells and chimes;
clinking through the alleys, rustling the trees as they run,
away from the gaping mouth of the tiger,
all the way home—safe across the shore.

Childhood is a faraway country
to which a visitation was once warranted in a dream.
And child-no-longer is exiled at its gates
that open no more.