Longer Days Poem by Carolyn Brunelle

The days were longer when I was a kid.
Longest kid days of the year were
Halloween, waiting for the magic hour
to don that costume
and Christmas Eve waiting for a mysterious
Santa that nobody ever actually really saw.
Both had to be a hundred hours long.
Simpler times, the result of not knowing
so much about the world; it’s realities.
I only knew to obey mom and dad
and stay out of trouble,
mind my manners,
do my school work
and take care of my little brother.
My child’s world was wrapped up
in those accomplishments
and in the challenges of
pogo sticks, climbing trees,
tutti frutti snowcones, kick the can,
and Saturday morning matinees
at the local theater.
Nowadays I seem to be out of sync
with time; so much of it a blur,
hardly knowing where the day went or
when one has passed me by completely.
And I miss those longer, slower ones
when I could still feel my life ...
as I ran and played in the grass
swung from tree ropes;
tasted its goodness in my mom’s cooking,
saw its beauty in lightning bugs;
had it wrap around me in a blanket of stars
and sing me to sleep
to the sounds of crickets and bullfrogs.
And I wonder ...
in that other timeless place we all eventually go
if I might recapture those longer, slower days again.