Innocence by Jacqueline Nash

As summer is more or less over I thought this poem would bring a little sunshine into the day and remind us of the glorious summers of childhood.

Innocence

I remember how the sun always shone
in clear skies of blue,
radiating warm golden light
making everything gleam bright,
on those never ending summer days of long ago.

I can see us all now
sitting on the grass,
so carefree and happy,
we could be anyone we wanted to be,
but mostly;
we were princesses.

We wore our daisy chain crowns like halos
along with our daisy chain necklaces,
the daisies protected us we had been told,
from being stolen by the fairies;
because daisy eyes stay open in the sun.

How we loved to search in the grass,
for a lucky four leaf clover,
it gave us so much fun,
we knew each leaf had a meaning,
love, faith, hope and the fourth of course,
well; that was the lucky one.

Grass stalks we found quite easily
and a whimsical game we would play,
we picked the seeds off one by one,
he loves me, he loves me not,
the last seed decided the outcome,
although boyfriends, we had none.

We would scream with laughter,
giggle and chatter,
blow dandelion seeds
and watch them scatter,
making a wish as we blew,
hoping with pure hearts
that the wish would come true.

Golden buttercups were good fun too,
we held them under our chins in jest,
“do you, don’t you, of course you do”,
it was the well known “Do you like butter?” test.

The simplest things would please us then,
we felt so wonderfully free,
in bare feet,
the feel of grass between our toes,
we sang and danced in abandonment
with uninhibited spontaneity.

The hot summer day would move into night,
when in our beds
we would lay our sleepy heads,
and in sweet dreams,
we would relive
the wonders of our day.