It’s been too long since I stood at a window in a white cotton gown
Waiting for a boy and his shadow to come.
Freud and Jung, no doubt, would argue over the symbolism,
But I will leave them to it.
I want a little taste of Neverland –
The marbles are long gone and food has lost its flavor.
The day tick tocks away and I can feel every cell counting the time.
For no apparent reason, or just because I appeared
In a digital window, words blinking on a screen,
He called me Wendy, and I don’t even know how he meant it, for sure,
But I do know how I took it,
And it may very well be one of the sweetest moments of my life.
Kindred spirits, knowing everything and nothing of the other,
Give a nod and wink, a sly smile,
In small black letters typed across too many miles apart,
Recognizing the mystery and the certainty
Of the simple power of presence.

I have always been mother to lost boys.
I, too, am lost. And there is joy in the wandering.
A little voice argues that I should fly away,
Think enough happy thoughts
To get me back to nestling with oversized down pillows, a bedside
Table holding a small glass of warm milk for comfort.
But beds are in rooms, cages of houses
That shelter us only until thrusting into survival of the fittest again.
When I resign myself to growing up, youthful bliss is
Too quickly replaced with weariness, and my bones ache
At even the thought of going home.

I am reminded today at the passing of a friend from one world
To another that perhaps Neverland isn’t so far
And that death, indeed, would be a very big adventure.
So, come, Hook, with your viciousness
And schemes. Come and have our blades dance together,
Making music, making love, making misery,
And, yes, making a way for that wretched tick tick ticking to stop,
Come what may. I am ready.
When Tink fell, I clapped my hands, like all the others; I said
I do believe in fairies, but I wonder who, someday,
Will say they believe in me.
I will fight in a white cotton gown, but I am more
than you see, more than a girl waiting
for a boy and his shadow to lead me straight on til morning.
I am the magic dust, the rising sun itself,
the imagination of a lost boy on an frantic day.
I do not need your permission to exist as I do. I will live
Until I die. And even then, live on.
What have I to fear?
Do your worst.

11/09/2008

Author's Note: Thank God for reinvented Peter Pan.

Posted on 11/09/2008
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