Relics

 Marlon Brumbelow posted this photograph on social media in January 2021 with these words: 

As I was detecting an old home site in Rome today these long lost relics once again saw the light of day. A beautiful little sterling silver birthstone ring, a 1947 Offenhauser open wheel race car made by Tootsie Toy, and a marble. All have something in common. They belonged to a child. Regardless of who you are now or who you have been, we all have been children. We all spent time in a place where the world was not as big as our imagination. We could be anyone or anything without limits. Time was not something that seemed to confine us. We had years and years ahead and very few behind. I can't help but wonder if the children who lost these relics of the past in the heart of Rome may be reading this post? What kind of journey have they been on? I hope they found love and have lived with God's favor. I hope they are surrounded with their own children and grandchildren. I hope you never lost that childhood wonder and your memories are kind.

The first assignment in the 2021 Deadlines for Writers poetry group was to write a poem using the prompt "pure." My first thought went to the purity of childhood and how beautiful human nature is before it become influenced (tainted?) through contact with the expectations of others, the occasional cruelty of nature, and the failings of human character and strength. When I saw Marlon's post on Facebook about the relics he unearthed in Rome, GA, this week, children from the 1940s came alive in my head, and I wrote this poem. It is probably still not in its final version. 

Relics

Whether king, or barber, or lawyer, or maid -  

Each person you meet on your way -

Was once a child, an innocent child,

Spending days in pure innocent play.

****

“Way back when” he embraced each new day

Wide-eyed with wonder and mirth.

Eager to learn; quick to love;

Thrilled to inhabit the Earth.

 

The world is expansive, but she doesn’t know;

Her world is her family and friends.

Imagination is bigger - bigger by far -

Than the world ouside her “pretend.”

She rides off to France in her Tootsie Toy racecar

Hair blowing in carefree abandon.

Those stuffy adults trudging off to their work?

She just waves as she leaves them a’standin’

While they’re off at work, she takes a world tour,

From Paris to London and Rome.

She plays on the beaches, meets wizards and rogues,

Has parties, and still beats them all home.

****

He picks up a stick, draws a circle in dirt;

Friends gather ‘round for some fun.

He shines up the marble he won last week,

And grins as it gleams in the sun.

He positions the orb in his fingers just so.

He aims, one eye closed, and lets fly.

Click, clack, marbles scatter; the outside world’s gone.

That dirt ring’s the Earth and the sky.

**** 

But years come and go, and life takes its toll, and

He learns to be wary and coy.

Life is all business and “buyer beware.”

She can’t take time to enjoy.

 

Now the king, the barber, the lawyer, the maid,

Look grown-up, and sophistication’s implied,

But just show them these relics - this marble, this car -

And out pops the kid that’s inside!