� Elizabeth Larrabee
When I was knee high to Emmett Kelly
there was a mountain ten feet high
across from the rectangle.
Yes, a skyscraper of a rock
with a cranny that nature
had carved to just my size.
I climbed, out of breath,
to the perfect grandstand seat
and I cradled in tight
against the granite
awaiting the curtain to rise
on my imagination's theater of dreams.
Trumpets blare.
The entire Barnum and Bailey Circus
cavorts on the scraggly grass below
with only one utterly awed spectator
in the brightly canvassed big top.
Wild animals, captured in the dark
mysterious jungle,
ROAR.
Frighten me.
Lusciously.
Tigers like that
O, tigers like that,
I'd "bring 'em back alive" one day
like in the stories
Papa told me at bedtime.
Until then, another bite
of my grape jelly sandwich.
Another daydream
till the sound of Mama's voice
calls me home.
Did it ever rain back then?
Were the skies always blue
and was there never
a sadness?
� Elizabeth Larrabee
Earliest Recall | Lady Slippers | How Poor Were We? | Free Food
The Smaller The Bigger | Mud Flats | Speaking of Smells | Random Pieces
Growing Up the Hard Way �| No Bogey Man | Green Apples | Poor Buster
Up and Down | True Friends | Moving | Rosie's Hangout | Crystal Ball
You weren't so Hot After All | Haunts | On Acting the Way You Feel | Amen
�
�
�� �
E-Mail Liz Larrabee