Outside adult time, deaf to authority,
a wide swathe of reserve thickly willowed
A magic place of secret springs and tangled tracks
forever cool under a high green canopy.
There we were sourcerers and knights,
daily seamstresses to our own myths,
becoming history in the forgotten forest of childhood.

There was a field, the corner of a kingdom,
a brown-grassed wilderness beyond the school gates.
We loitered intently on our way home,
beating the dry stalks with drier sticks,
scuffing the pale dust into the summer air,
scuffing the pale dust into the shimmering summer air,
lingering together in the secret forest of childhood.

My grandparents lived in another world, beside a river
where tall poplars and walnuts grew.
We burnt fallen leaves there in autumn,
dancing through the fragrant smoke with watering eyes.
In summer we explored together the green bounds
of the eely-weedy river,
long sun-splashed days in the hidden forest of childhood.

Won’t you come; won’t you come with me.
Won’t you walk; won’t you run with me.
Come back, walk back, run back through the years.

We will ride; we will roam again.
We will roll and reel and rule again.
We will dance and dare and delight to feel so new;
Just you, just me and just you
In the lost forests of childhood.

Leigh Harrison © APRA 2002