NaPoWriMo Day 26: When I was seven

Hi, I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April.  

For Day 26, the prompt was to write about a fruit, so it all went bananas.

This is the prompt for the April 26 poem:

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). This is one that we’ve used before, but one test of a good prompt is that you can come back to it! For this you will need to fill out, in five minutes or less, the following “Almanac Questionnaire”. Then, use your responses as the basis for a poem.

When I was seven

On the news today they’re talking about Covid-19,

Article upon article of confusion, death and suffering.

I imagine writing a love letter to my younger self,

Reminding her to live more and worry less.

Pangs of adulthood and random fears like heights

Didn’t exist when I was seven and summer blazed.

I dreamt I’d be a ballet dancer, a vet or a painter,

A storyteller, fireman or an astronaut even, boldly

Going where no seven-year-old had gone before.

It was the sunshine of our lives. We wandered

In an endless daydream through fields of wildflowers,

A carpet of purply bluebells, little heads nodding.

My father worked on the railway as a driver

And to me that was the best job ever.

You got to travel places and see the world –

Or at least the view from Slade Green to Charing X!

Back then, walls and carriages were emblazoned

With graffiti and the words ‘NF’ here and there.

My dad didn’t know how to explain when asked

And I was too young to know what racism was.

Us kids saw everyone at school as the same

With two arms, two legs, a body and a head.

What else was there? Neither did I know of politics,

Poverty or death. They hadn’t come calling yet.

On holiday my nan read me the funny tale

Of a rubber duck in Toyland who saved the town,

And I hoped to do the same if ever a flood came.

My favourite animals were cats and dolphins,

But our house was like an urban zoo back then

So I had far too many favourites to choose from!

My dad bred budgerigars in a garden aviary

And they’d eat seed from my outstretched hand,

Fluttering all around me, their little faces smiling

I’d communicate with them all by winking.

I remember ice cream dripping down my hands,

Cornets sometimes falling victim to the sand.

There were more birds and dog pooh on the street,

Long walks to school, blackouts, stretched-out days.

The boys once found naked photos in an alleyway

And us girls ran away. We’d never heard of porno mags –

Those things belonged to the realm of adult giants,

A serious world we didn’t get and didn’t want to join.

In those days we’d be sent to bed for not eating our tea.

Friday was fish day with peas and buttered bread.

Mondays was egg and chips with Heinz baked beans.

Dinner went to town on Sundays with a gigantic roast,

My grandparents the guests of honour – my nan with her

Pies and puds was the dessert queen, a blue-rinse dream.

Those sunshine days of old are made for saving and reviewing,

For keeping close to the heart in times like these.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 26, 2020