Young Again *

If I were young again I'd hold your hand on Sunday hikes, you'd comfort me while I pretend to comfort you, the forest trees can scare a bit, and back in town it's quite okay, my mates are fine with Indian brides, I always was your Winnetou, remember when you helped to pick the feathers for the chief? Grandma was livid though, new featherbeds were due for the arrivals to the clan, you were my favourite, a joy to chase, to tease, and then we grew, and grew, I looked at you and saw the buds I'd read about, they made you wear a top, which we discarded while playing in the river, or when we made a home up in the loft of Herr Fallou, the crazy French who'd stayed and let his troops go home, without him, back in forty-five, all just because he fell in love, and married into gold and land. Two hundred thousand cherry trees, a true plantation, with its weekend house, I let you climb the ladder first, so I could look, I think you knew, and then we'd grown too old, your mother said, for cousins of the upper class to smooch, and they kept evil eyes on us, but love outsmarts old folks, as if they had forgotten their own past, we read all books inside the library yet still checked out a ton to take away, then came the study time at university and it was Mother, bless her heart who said the famous words that day: Your cousin Gina is a genius at math, why don't you study with her, boy? It was the day that I observed you in the bath there were some bubbles in your tub, I missed the toy. If you were young again with me, I'd hold your hand, on Sunday hikes. And I would blow a thousand bubbles in your bath. For My Sandpit Companion