Remembered Fantasy

by Melissa King

The pond, green with slime, renews itself each year.
Rains fill it to overflow a small clay cliff,
Cascading muddily past untamed branches
Grasping at the opposite bank--
Where I enter below the waterfall.

Old oaks dip their roots down in harmless ivy beds
Inside the shaded gully--
A fallen tree beckons.
I can sit there, and see my imaginary world
Beyond the bramble arch of wild raspberry.

It's still, and in the quiet I hear the possibility--
My own yearning for adventure--
For change.
It's true!

Thorny vines pluck my skin inside the arc.
I crawl on toes and fingertips, trying to avoid their futile attempts
--They shall not bar me! Finding the path needs be hard like this.

Light blazes in from the other side.

Muted colors emerge as I do, scrapes stinging, light blue shorts
ripped-hole.
Pieces of me left inside the arc as pieces of it cling in my hair.
Perhaps! Where will it be?

The sun, away from the shade of the hollow
gleams across the water
--is hot on my skin
--hurts my eyes
--shows simple reality.
Years of growth held only the secret sting of needles for my childish fancy.
No world met me there. I was surprised.

I turn, following a new angle of the pond
Back into the shaded canopy.
A fish splashes, catching an iridescent dragonfly.
Geese honk as I near their nest, around the ledge path
back to where I began, now atop the waterfall, looking down.
Clumps of scum slide past and down into foam, emerging through small rapids
to cling to tame branches that lick the stream,
as they languidly reach across to touch the opposite bank.

I hear my mother call. Time to go home.
The pond, filled with rain and reverie, renews itself
while I age, and my childhood fades--
Becoming the imaginary world I seek.

The Author

Melissa King, a 25-year-old kid at heart, cannot often find time to write, but plans to pursue any authoring talent she might have. In between work, her new husband's obsession with salt-water aquariums, and their rambunctious beagle, Daisy, it might be a long time coming! Still, she likes to imagine that rewrites of some of her older work will be enjoyed by those who take a read!