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Poetry: Long ago

by Nancy Browne

Imaginary Fantasy

I grew up on the farm

Sheltered from reality

I viewed the 'real world'

Through the windows

Of 'Mother Goose'

And 'Grimm's Fairy tales'

Equal to that of my child's size

Imagination

Had its way with me

I went to the moon

Unlike the cow who jumped over it

Long before anyone had ever landed on it

I kissed the stars

And rode a cloud

All the way to my grandfather's house

Hopped on a raindrop

All the way to the candy store

I touched the sun

Without getting burned

Though in my sensible mind

I did so when it was going down

I planted a bean

Watching daily, to see if it would grow

Into a stalk

So, I could climb it like Jack

However, it never took root

And I decided I really didn't want to meet

The Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, green giant anyway

I was the rhyme in 'Mother Goose'

And more than once

I was Mother Goose myself

I played games

With Peter Pan and Pinocchio

I wore the glass slipper

Rode the carriage

Found my true love

As Cinderella

I was Sleeping Beauty

Snow White, Rupunzel

Mary Poppin's

And once, even her umbrella

I moved on to the garden

And made a house from a tomato

Drove a cucumber bus

And parked it in the onion garage

I made a swing from twigs

And used rhubarb as a slide

And the beets cried

When I poked them with a stick

And they left blood on my finger

And the radish

Became my best friend

As I slip into a personal

And irrelevant nostalgia

I think of how easy

Imagination had its way with me

And how easy

In my memory bank

It is to recall them

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