TOYSHOP WINDOW GAZING
A wooden castle with windows and a drawbridge wide
Which could hold a regiment of toy soldiers inside
And a turret with a big red dome -
No point in even asking to take it home
Then, each time we passed the toy shop
I just had to slow and stop
And muse and wish achingly without relief -
But it was never going to be my boyhood fief.
Now, my kids don’t stop there to muse
But chisel, saw, and screws I use -
The toyshop now is closed for trade
Instead I’ve cut and glued and made
That wooden castle for them
And doll-house, puppets,cars, and farm
And sailing boats and planes and things
Like tree house, stilts, and garden swings.
Absence of a small toy leaves heart unfulfilled
And makes big boy hands much more skilled.
ALWAYS IN THE WINDOW
Child gazing longing in toyshop window
Learns to stop wanting and simply pretend,
Like watching queen a smile bestow
Or leaning on fair-weather friend.
Constantly holding back her promise
She seems to move ‘cross starry sky.
Smiles she through my dreams in darkness
And dims the sun at noonday high.
In the loneliness of childhood
I gazed at her by clear night:
My hope not changed, not understood -
Enchantment through the window bright.
In the crowded years of older age
At her beauty I’m lost for speech:
She yet continues to engage
But always too far out of reach.
So far away, too strange to reach.
In deafened glass I hear no message;
My face can touch her hand; but each
One real - or simply longing image?
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