The Lost Garden

I spoke to her as one child to another, as the child I was to the child she is, as the child I remember, who is, remembering, still here. And, in part, she understood me. As I, in part only, understand. I spoke to the child she still is, and also, perhaps, to the woman she ’ll soon become. I spoke to the child who plays in the garden I grew up in, am not, now, allowed to enter; can still – still – watch. Oh I spoke to the sweet-natured girl who can play there to her heart’s content, for a while yet. I spoke to the child, in the mind only.