children of january

All you wanted was

to run back and forth to that forest puddle and 

throw sticks to the muck, ruin a pair of 

good shoes with the brown, saturated,

surface of the planet. I think we should all 

be a little more like you. Re-acquaint 

with natural value, dine on the spongy look of

dandelions—wonder about thorns,

and learn for ourselves what hurts, then

learn from our people what heals.

Maybe cocoa’s sugar doesn’t amend 

everything, but it gets us halfway there

and the sun browsing the stream

does the rest. Then, we rest—

splashed in the earth’s currency

and acclimatised again, to

being only one person at once. Attuned.

Dirty the narrative at the same time

as our pretty clothes: forget that 

we ever economised the 

innocent pleasure of living

to have to be several versions of who we are. 

Emerge, to connect or to project twigs

beneath the bridge. Locate the person you were

when you met the world: intuition

is the character of most that find themselves

at home in the open.

© Mollie Mardel