Castle Treasure
-a free verse poem about childhood memories
Was it this small, my house, forlorn on a gray, snowy day? Darkened, with peeling blue paint, it was not easy for me to remember it as a castle…. Eyes closed, though, I could recall… high stairs, a formidable climb, a great brick chimney tower with fierce mice on lookout above a front door impervious to giants and all bad things,
We went in … I, reluctant, my friend encouraging. We passed too easily the aged crumbling ramparts, for the door was broken, the magic broken too. So it seems the giants musta got in after all without the 6 year old princess Blue to rule.
I turned to leave… and… gentle hands redirected me with subtle encouragement, “Let’s just look, Annie.” It was a short walk 20 years into the past on squeaky floorboards through an empty family room past garish graffitied walls and into my bedroom.
In truth, I wanted it… the magic from then because it didn’t leave… not in my pocket with me. Not then, no. Still here? Part of me hoped to find them all waiting Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Cat in the Hat and Mama and Daddy.
That old loose floorboard in the secret back corner of my Princess closet had been nailed down for its bad behavior over the 20 years or so. But I set him free again. Did I see him smile broader with the crayon smile on the underside of him? I found my treasure, not there… but in my memories. It was a box of uncertain dimensions contents half misremembered, all but forgotten, protected, in that old Castle Vault.
I remembered, though, that Mama and Daddy were there inside that great little box, and brave little Princess Blue, in stacks of old photos and always with smiles. And Baby Bunny lay in the corner resting with Mermaid Barbie and her friend Midge. Also in the hole under the Great Box, was the Royal Library
of noble Dr. Seuss, and the Treasury of marbles and rocks and plastic jewels.
No giants had passed our Great Front Door on the day I was taken, I declared to myself, laughing and tearful. The walls had stood to hold my memories, expecting my return, and an army of mice awaited my last command. “At ease, soldiers, a job well done!”
I took the the memory of that hidden treasure, and the magic within, walking out proudly past the Royal Graffiti Murals, and over Enduring Floors, out the Great Front Door and down the Towering Steps. All that was missing was Daddy’s favorite car, ginormous and red and loud… to take us for a ride around town. But Princess Blue didn’t need that anymore.
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