Young Again * Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

If I were young again
I'd hold your hand
on Sunday hikes,
you'd comfort me
while I pretend
to comfort you,
the forest trees
can scare a bit,
and back in town
it's quite okay,
my mates are fine
with Indian brides,
I always was your Winnetou,
remember when
you helped to pick
the feathers for the chief?
Grandma was livid though,
new featherbeds were due
for the arrivals to the clan,
you were my favourite,
a joy to chase, to tease,
and then we grew,
and grew, I looked at you
and saw the buds I'd read about,
they made you wear a top,
which we discarded
while playing in the river,
or when we made a home
up in the loft of Herr Fallou,
the crazy French who'd stayed
and let his troops go home,
without him, back in forty-five,
all just because he fell in love,
and married into gold and land.
Two hundred thousand cherry trees,
a true plantation, with its weekend house,
I let you climb the ladder first,
so I could look, I think you knew,
and then we'd grown too old,
your mother said, for cousins
of the upper class to smooch,
and they kept evil eyes on us,
but love outsmarts old folks,
as if they had forgotten their own past,
we read all books inside the library
yet still checked out a ton to take away,
then came the study time at university
and it was Mother, bless her heart
who said the famous words that day:
Your cousin Gina is a genius at math,
why don't you study with her, boy?
It was the day that I observed you in the bath
there were some bubbles in your tub, I missed the toy.
If you were young again with me,
I'd hold your hand,
on Sunday hikes.
And I would blow
a thousand bubbles in your bath.

For My Sandpit Companion