Misty Times Poem by Peter Hall

In misty times past
I go back to the sixties,
Of mixed childhood memories
And change spurned by hippies,
Of Green Valley perfection
Just outside Sydney town,
Where blue skies always smiled
Yet black clouds always frowned.

The mixture of the memories
Of childhood dilly-dally,
Take me to the paradise
12 acres in Green Valley,
Where Nanna and my Aunties
Were my Grandpa's host,
And after church on Sunday
We communed with Vegemite and toast.

Climbing the tallest Gum tree
Is what every child aught to,
In frying Aussie summers
Swimming in bush water,
Everyday surveying
The forever eucalypt treeline,
Imprints the required innocence
Before the adult deadlines.

But during God's appointment
To that place and time,
How do doubts spring up
In the innocent childlike mind? ,
Was it the first day of school
That encouraged the lonely tears,
Or my father's disapproval
That birthed a flood of fears? .

There is no perfect childhood
As per the humanist hype,
Where flesh is in control
There is no black and white,
But being spiritually minded
In the present and future life,
supersedes the past
For joy is in the Christ.