Childhood's End Poem by Andrew Rainford

Do you recall a time,
Where the most significant dilemma,
Was which brook to bridge,
Or which field to ford,
When the sun was warm,
And the fields were verdant.

Do you remember a time,
When we would live forever,
The cares of life not weighed upon us,
Blowing dandelion fairies on the air,
Shades of gingham in fields unnumbered,
And endless admiring faces gazed upon ours.

Can you recall a time,
When we ran beneath the trees,
Uncaring of money or love,
Memories of scraped knees and germoline,
Of plasters and dock leafs,
And of childish games left unfinished.

Can you remember a time,
When we walked to school through the lane,
To the sound of birdsong unending,
And the smell of fresh bread in the morning,
Then homeward across sun baked clay,
Or to the scent of rain on the hot pavement in summer.

I recall a time,
When we swang on ropes in trees,
After a swim in the pool beneath the waterfall,
My sibling wet from falling in the stream,
I walked to the car in my underwear,
In a gallant display of brotherly chivalry.

I remember the day,
Strewn in front of the fire with mother,
Happy and painting the tragic clown's trousers,
When the world turned upside down to me,
And the realisation hit me at the tender age of Seven,
As a cold hard slap in the face from the vestage of reality.

'And so it verily was,
That the day of actualisation of my own death,
Was the day my childhood was raped of me,
By a cruel and tormentuous world'