Summer Pools

 
As I sat in the verandah pool side,
I listened to your childish chatter
echo from the face of a pristine world.

I watched you play endless games,
take adventurous journeys to the edges
of your extraordinary imagination.

I watched you swim like a dolphin
through pools of your quaint universe;
dive for mermaids and find treasure chests.

As you gathered glints of sun
splashing from the surface of the water,
filled your sand-bucket mind with dreams;

I wondered,

how do you feel so strong, so confident
in this complex world? How do you hold
out under toppled towers and bomb blasts?

The answers rode back on dapples
of innocent laughter and reminded me
that I too had no concern for life's anguish

in my long past summer pools.
 
John H. Freeman
 


Copyright © 2001