When I was a litle girl,
I used to play in the pasture

Behind my grandmother’s house.

I would go into the cobweb-filled

Barn and get my gallant steed

Which was, at the time, a
Branch of the old pecan tree that
Grew next to the chicken yard and
Sheltered the summer strawberry patch.

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My black stallion and I would
Gallop across the terraces of the pasture,
Down to the duck pond that,

Upon reaching its water’s edge,

Became an ocean of imagination.
We chased through flurries of butterflies
That were mingling with wild buttercups.

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Often we challenged the wind to a swift race
And, of course, my stallion and I
Always beat it to the grove of cedar trees.

Perhaps it was in that grove
That I became a princess and

The foliage became my castle.

 

There was a creek that
Trickled down below the grove
And I used to catch mudpuppies

and minnows there.

Every now and then, I’d take

Raggedy Anne with me and we’d
Make mudpies to bring home to grandmother.

 

She liked the way we decorated
The top with kernels of
Dried corn from the corn crib.

I left, one day, that pasture,
The grove, the pond, the buterflies,
The wind, and my trusty steed.

 

And I think if you were to ever
Find the pasture behind my grandmother’s house,
You would see a litle girl’s dreams
Running through the grass
On a thing called pretend.