In Childhood Poem by Kimiko Hahn
In Childhood
things don't die or remain damaged
but return: stumps grow back hands,
a head reconnects to a neck,
a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic.
Later this vision is not True:
the grandmother remains dead
not hibernating in a wolf's belly.
Or the blue parakeet does not return
from the little grave in the fern garden
though one may wake in the morning
thinking mother's call is the bird.
Or maybe the bird is with grandmother
inside light. Or grandmother was the bird
and is now the dog
gnawing on the chair leg.
Where do the gone things go
when the child is old enough
to walk herself to school,
her playmates already
pumping so high the swing hiccups?
The fairy tales that a child hears from grand mother/father make deep impressions in his psyche.He believes them as true.He thinks that a dead man can be brought to life by magic.A stump can grow hands.As he grows he realises that these are stories and dead man can never arise.Still he finds his beloved grand mother/mother who are dead, in his fantasy world , in a bird's call or soft light of the morning.This fantasy world is a loving world where a child finds security, but once he grows enough he comes face to face with harsh realities of life.The poet says- -'Where do the gone things go When the child is old enough to walk herself to school her playmates already pumping so high the swing hiccups ? - - -A marvelous write, thanks for sharing.-
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/24/2024 1:55:18 PM # 1.0.0.1119
To learn! When the child is old enough. Thanks for sharing this poem with us.