Childhood Wishes

All those aimless childhood gambols—
dawn to dusk spontaneous ambles.
Up the block and down again,
back once more to where we’d been,
Hoping things perhaps had changed—
something misplaced, someone deranged.
But still, we found each of our homes
as regular as metronomes.
Day to day, each time we came,
everything was just the same.

How we craved a big event.
A calamity would be heaven-sent.
News to share in Sunday school
pithier than the Golden Rule.
We yearned for things to brag about
to cause town tongues to wag about.
Some juicy news or disaster that
served as excuse to chew the fat.
Instead, our lives were all the norm.
Safe and regular and warm.

We Monopolied and kicked the can.
We walked and biked and hopped and ran.
Combed back yards for a four leaf clover.
Played blind man’s bluff and Annie-I-Over.
But still we yearned for something new.
Felt caught in long hot summer’s glue.
Stones kicked down roads by summer sandals
attempts to dislodge unearthed scandals.
Little did we know one day
we’d be called upon to pay

Our debt for wishes finally granted.
Yet how we cursed and wept and ranted
when all those asked-for ills befell us.
Why didn’t anybody tell us
that normalcy is everything—
those quiet times that soon took wing.
Telephones first brought the news
of all those things we’d one day lose:
old pets, old dreams, old friends and spouses.
Totalled cars, repossessed houses.

War and pestilence and hunger?
We did not know when we were younger
that they were not simply a game.
We did not know that casting blame
on those responsible would fail.
For rich men do not go to jail.
They buy our votes then do their deeds
so no man but they ever succeeds.
And never can they get enough
as they cloak our eyes in blind man’s bluff.
But oh the scandals we now can tell.
Our childhood wishes realized so well.

The prompt word today was amble.