Setting the Stage for the Reign of Terror of the Terrible Tweens: Pickle-lily Dinah-Sewer

 I just found this poem, and it just sort of seemed to fit with the last entry. 

I first saw what we always called "One House Island" on Squam Lake (Golden Pond), back when I was about ten and Jude's family was taking us to ride the Cog Railway on Mt. Washington. We pulled off the road to simply look. There was room barely to walk the rocks around the island, and the dock must have been on the far side. There was simply a long tree that snaked out over the water to the left, and a giant, many-gabled house among the trees. Years later, I wrote this poem. But as  child, I would fall asleep, and dream stories of being the Good Witch of New Hampshire, guarding children in all the lakes, flying off on adventures far greater than the Pan, more sleepsending than any sandman...
 
Dream Witch of Holderness
In the mist, a castle-cottage
Rising silent from the water
Like the Loch Ness Monster --
You startle.

Un-turreted, but towering;
Alone, on small island nestled,
Where no safe harbor welcomes --
Only rocks.

Does your dock draw up at night?

Does your long-necked, pine-crowned bough
(So still and silent serpent
Over now day-misted lake)
Snake further still in the dark?

Turning gently to its queen,
"Dear Sorceress within,"
Does it whispering to you ask
"Where do we wander tonight?"

Then silent as owl's flight,
Does my Innisfree arise,
Unfurling gold-scaled dragon wings,
And vanish?

Do you color these worlds I dream?




***
We did not need summer camp, the terrible four. We had lakes and islands. Freedom. We had a seventeenth century graveyard and the remains of the Governor's Summer Castle from the 17th and 18th centuries.  We had imaginations and parents who thought it was perfectly understandable that islands take flight and fairies were born on water and there might just be a black panther somwhere among the ruins. And perhaps the cast iron train on the mantle ran when  no one watched, and we knew Grandpa's soldiers had bowling matches on the weekends we were away.

But there was one summer when we terrorized Heaven, were grounded for life and banned from every kitchen we knew. There was the summer of the worms, deep sea diving, poisoning our parents, and barely missing the Witch Rocks for our over-enthusiastic rendition of "Oh. Sweet Pea." People had DIED on the Witches and everyone knew that.  We were banned from all power boats, but there was always a rowboat.

Yes, there was that summer when we were out of the summer before our teens with a police escort, for sheer stupidity...


But that's for another day.