A World of Stories
I was born into a world of stories.
Not so much wrapped in those
of others’ telling.
My stories seeped
through my brain
like smoke.
Whatever I touched,
from dolls to hollyhock blossoms,
became characters
with roles
to play.
Even marbles
saved in an old cigar box.
The shooters, grown-ups.
The smaller ones, the children.
I’d spill them onto the living room rug
and play out their fates,
looming over them
like God.
But I needed neither dolls
nor blossoms
nor marbles
to populate my stories.
I inhabited them myself,
disappearing into pictures in books,
wandering through wallpaper
graced with cottages,
tumbling streams,
waterwheels
tiny groves of trees.
From my place in the back of our ’36 Ford,
I’d lean my cheek against the window
and gaze at the strip of grass
that ran alongside the road.
More than gaze,
I rode that strip of grass
on a handsome palomino.
When my horse and I
came to a bush,
we jumped it.
When we came to a culvert,
we jumped that.
When the land stretched out and out,
green and flat and inviting,
we galloped away,
wind in mane,
braids flying,
then back
to trot once more
beside the old black Ford.
All the while Mother, Father, brother
rode to our destination,
confined to the car,
unknowing.
A dollhouse with three-inch dolls
invited stories,
the best when I
was one of them.
Tiny me
in the tiny house
inside the big house.
My family so far away.
Safe, safe in my tiny house,
safe in my tininess,
safe.
Best of all,
the stories waiting every night
just behind my eyelids
when I settled
into bed.
Hurry into pajamas,
brush teeth,
pray.
Another story is waiting!
Always waiting.
Still.
