Believing…

When I was six years old,

I had my own secret place.

It was reserved for those times

when none of my friends

could come out to play

and I was left to my own devices.

I would wander through

the field of sunflowers behind my house

until I came to the stump of an ancient oak tree.

There, I would grandly seat myself

and become “Fairy Princess of the Forest.”

It was like an enchanted place,

with all those sunflowers towering over me,

and I took secret pleasure in the fact

that nobody in the world

knew where I was at that very moment…

Here,  I ruled over a kingdom of bumblebees,

ladybugs, and the occasional squirrel,

and pretended I had magic in me

and could do anything!

As the years passed and I got busy,

my trips became less frequent

and finally ceased altogether.

I think now that that was a bigger loss

than I realized.

In the world we live in today,

maybe we should all, no matter our age,

have a secret place

(if only in our minds,)

where we can go and believe

in the magic deep within us

once more.