Sunday, May 12, 2013

Yet Was Wider

When I was three and my family moved from the Chicago area to the wilds of northern Minnesota, I found myself confronted by a wonderful world without limits. I could explore where I wished, experiment as I wanted, and expand my world at will. And expand it did! Those were days of wonder and glory when my eyes were closer to the ground!


MY WORLD AT THREE

Here I stood to watch the squirrels
Scrurrying through the uncut grass,
And there a stump stood, rotting in,
Which I always kicked as I would pass.
The tractor ruts were great ravines
Reverberating wall to wall
With caterpillar calisthenics
And antic ants doing somersaults.

There were no walls within my world
To block me in or slow me down;
Yet never I needed wander far
For wonder awaited me all around.
My stride was short, and yet was wider,
A realm within each step I took;
Life, Death and God whispered in the wind
And Heaven filled every brush and brook.


2 comments:

John W. May said...

Beautiful poem, Doug. Reminded me of when I was a kid walking through the backwoods in New Jersey- an enormous and, to use a cliché, enchanting world.

Is this poem one of your works?

Doug P. Baker said...

Thanks, John. Yes it is. Isn't it amazing how potent early memories are!