I wrote this reflection the better part of a year ago. It has since sat scrawled and untouched in blue ink in my diary. In essence that is because ‘untouched’ is what this poem is about - the inherent beauty in naivety. However, sitting outside my old piano teacher’s house, or rather, lack thereof, prompted the realisation that to abandon childhood is to abandon the falsehood that things would stay the same forever.
Eulogy.
An iron bucket rests on overgrown grass
The bold yellow digger attached contradicts the sweeping greens of the maunga looking on.
The bucket rests in a space where the piano once stood
Precious and wise, that piano was stability in the swirling realities of a child’s own mind
As I look now, remember the miniature church bell
I’d ring hesitantly.
And I’d wait for the footsteps of a familiar face to welcome me in.
Like the piano, Mrs P. had lived a lot of life
I both loved and feared her searing honesty
I would strive to win her admiration.
And I’d dream that I was Beethoven or Chopin or Mozart or Brubeck or Joplin
mesmerised by the melodies beneath my fingertips
All the while conscious of a stern voice reminding me my crotchets were played like quavers
Because I never did learn to count
I blink.
The house that shaped my childhood no longer exists
The rimu floorboards and corrugated roof vanished with my childhood naivety
The flimsy fencing that stands guard is a symbol of industry. of efficiency. of an economy.
none of which the child inside me will ever understand.
By Caitlin Mansfield
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