"My mother always knew where I was, playing
in the ravine between our house and Grandma's
house, or else rebuilding one of my little
stick-and-cardboard playhouses in the old,
overgrown orchard beyond the ravine, where
there was always the wonderful bitter smell
of black walnuts and plenty pf green apple
ammunition to use against the two brothers
- I forget their names now - who always tore
down my playhouses overnight.

So then I would be very busy the next morning
moving all my stuff to a new location, and then
I would go down into the ravine again, where the
narrow blue water slid easily between the red
clay banks of the stream, and the sounds it made
among the reeds there seemed to contain all the
voices in the world, and I had lots of fun making
little red clay heads and setting them out on the
rocks to dry in the high-noon sunshine, inevitably
to be smashed by those same two brothers again.

And I also remember that every Wednesday evening
after supper I would hold on very tight to my
little sister's hand while we were walking past
the ravine, being careful to stay in the middle
of the road so that the terrible, raving, red-eyed
boogeyman (who lived in the deepest shadows of the
ravine at night) couldn't reach our ankles. We
were on our way to watch Superman on Grandma's
brand-new T.V. set."

02/26/2008