Finding the Otherworld

 

Finding the Otherworld

The backyard of my childhood
was heaven. Here was the wall
of bright forsythia, the snowball bush
shedding blossoms. Here the path
through hedges followed by
neighborhood children, my father
the forest guardian they must
pass to gain the road. Heavy-
headed lilacs bordered the south,
and beyond their fragrant guard,
our neighbor's rabbit hutches
raised on bricks. Wild rabbits
crouch beneath their cousins,
their young concealed like eggs
in the grass. Immune in the split-
fork tree, I watched for entry to
another world. I wanted to believe
that I was left by sinister fairies,
that someday they would return.
I wanted to believe that I might
wait in the tree to watch my future
self return, lavender smell shrouding
me in a blanket of mist. I would turn
in a circle, the right words leaving
my mouth like breath, no difference
now between spell and game.
I would spin myself dizzy and part
the hedge, stepping backward
into my first green world.