When We Were Wild
Back when we used the sun to keep time,
we ran around like blank canvases,
and the green foliage was a primary color
we mixed to create how we saw the world—
everything else was secondary.
We abandoned the roads and took the trails
because we were girl guides and boy scouts
collecting skills through trial and error
and honing them on nature’s playground.
We climbed trees and swung from branches,
admiring the canopies and eagles’ nests,
before jumping down onto the mossy carpet
and skipping by bluebells and pink lady slippers
to raspberry bushes for a sweet treat
we could toss into the air and catch with our mouths.
We discovered abandoned mines
with rock drill cores in wooden boxes,
and marveled at their mineral treasures.
We used shedding birch bark as stationary
to draw the map of how we got there,
and used the deadfall as landmarks
and scratched an X into the ground to mark the spot.
We skinned our knees scaling rock formations—
proudly wearing our scrapes as marks of courage.
And overlooked the wide expanse of glassy lake
reflecting the tall trees and puffy white clouds—
breathing in the scenery before diving into the sky.
We explored the weightlessness of freedom
without abiding by the ordinary rules of gravity.
We dried off in the last of the sun’s rays
and called our goodnights to the loons—
their wails reverberated across the lake
in a haunting yet soothing bedtime lullaby.
Then we started our journey back home,
euphorically tired and wiser than when we left—
serenaded by crickets and fireflies
ushering us home along the landmarks
we immortalized as monuments
to our golden eternity of childhood.
All the notes we keep
our minds are glass jars
filled with handwritten notes
from those who added to our stories
folded origami butterflies,
they rest until the jar breaks
then come to life and fly away
we grieve fragility
the loss of the unwritten
wisdom imparted on warm breath
braided into living memory
longing reaches across the ethereal
reads those notes like an incantation
summoning them through dreams
as a lone willow
manifested in a forest of aspens
marking the path
we couldn’t see through our anxieties
as a child that skips over
inviting us to play
when adulthood weighs us down
and confines us to a park bench
as a crumpled paper
half-hidden in the sand
strings of random words
that follow us back to the waking world
we read them,
familiarity brushes against our psyche
like the graze of a butterfly wing
it feels like warm breath
displacing an old note
briefly bringing it to life
Author’s Biography
Renee Cronley is a writer and nurse from Manitoba. She studied Psychology and English at Brandon University, and Nursing at Assiniboine Community College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, PRISM international, Off Topic, Love Letters to Poe, NewMyths.com, Weird Little Worlds, ParABnormal Magazine, Black Spot Books, and several other anthologies and literary magazines.
https://www.instagram.com/reneecronley/