Galleon’s Lap

We got there early, found a parking space
up at Gill’s Lap,
wandered down past The Enchanted Place,
hoping to play poohsticks on Pooh Sticks Bridge.
I watched as my boys ran wild, a madcap
chase high onto a ridge,
then down the far side, towards the water
as I felt dread about my tomboy daughter.

That day, a first: in her first summer dress,
she’d checked herself;
the first time she had chosen not to mess
around with her tameless little brothers
and though, of course, she’s now a girl of twelve,
something about that bothers
me. Perhaps it’s harder now to pretend
childhood isn’t tapering towards its end.

Close to the bridge, we heard the camera clicks,
saw Japanese
tourists throwing their armfuls of poohsticks
into the water. With that, my daughter
said, ‘Oh...it’s packed’, and skulked among the trees
as though people ought to
be kept away; all but one explorer.
The place should stay enchanted just for her.

Back at the car, I sat in the front seat
glueing a shoe.
I had bought the kids an ice cream as a treat.
The boys ran off but my daughter waited.
Not knowing for a moment what to do,
she held, hesitated,
smiled, ‘might as well’ and then I watched her run,
a spring beauty, toward the summer sun.