When I Was A Child

When I was a child -

They are words of recollection

Remembrance

Reminiscence

They point to what was

But is no longer

They are an invitation to reconsider the past

To look again

To recall

To reconnect with

Stories

People

Experiences

Hurts and

Happiness-es

Scrapes and

Scabs

Secrets and

Certainties

When I was a child --

They are words of retrospect

That breathe life

Into the dry bones of memories

Raising them from the dead

To dance with the present

And mingle their mysteries

With time and space

Intersecting the then

And the now

In a moment that

Was and is

And then is gone

Again

When I was a child --

They are words of nostalgia

And regret

Invoking

Commendations and condemnations,

Favor and failure,

Solace and suffering,

Bringing to light

The hidden and the holy

From the recesses

Of darkness -

Forgotten places and

Times

Occasions of joy and

Sorrow

Frivolity and

Fear

Revived into

Bespoken animation -

Sojourns into the known

Unknown

When I was a child -

The past tense

Present

Looking back

And over

And past

And through

And then

Returning

From there

To here

From then

To now

From what was

Or might have been

To what is

And never will be

When I was a child

I was

A

Child

That was then

This is now

Then I wished for now

Now I wish for then.

Charlene M. Rachuy Cox

May 7, 2017