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Jose Asuncion Silva - ChildhoodJose Asuncion Silva - Childhood
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These recollections with the scent of ferns                                     Are the idyll of early years                                       (Gregorio Gutierrez González) Accompanying the hazy memories Time so generously glorifies, Returning to a welcoming heart And flocking like white butterflies, Come fantasies of happy childhood days. Blue Beard, Little Red Ridinghood, Lilliputians and the giant Gulliver, All of you, floating in the mist of dreams, Spread your wings, fly, So I, the happy journeyer Through storybooks, may summon you To join with other, beloved characters. O blessed youth! Eyes aglimmer With dawning discovery Follow the weary teacher’s hand Across the big red figures In the tattered primer, Where traces of vague recognition, Rewarding periods of youthful despondency, Beneath indifferent shadows Begin forming letters into words On a dewy, white, Luminous, restless August morning, Helping a blazing sun rise On wings of the breeze Toward skies dotted with drifting clouds; Listening to a grandmother’s Exemplary fairy tales; Skipping school To organize a clamorous battle In which rocks rattle like bullets And a rumpled kerchief becomes a flag. Constructing a manger scene Of materials gathered from the woods, Then, after the long, rowdy outing Arranging the grasses, Coral twigs, and treasured mosses, And on strange and alien landscapes, Perspectives never seen or dreamed, Creating roads of golden sand And waterfalls of gleaming tinsel. Positioning the Wise Men on the hill And overhead The star that led them from afar; In the crib, the laughing Baby Jesus In his bed of Softest mosses and leafy ferns. Pristine soul, blush-pink cheeks, Skin like ermine on the snow, Flaxen curls, Sparkling yet peaceful eyes, how fair In memory the innocent babe! Childhood, hallowed valley Of blessed calm and coolness, Where rays that will later blast our days So softly shine, How saintly your pure innocence, How fleeting your brief happiness, How sweet in hours of bitterness To turn back to the past And call upon those memories!
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