Life Is Good…

I remember a night from a long, long time ago like it was just yesterday clinging and to my soul.
I was only ten and I at last was going to camp out in a tent all by myself not far from the fox and the deer’s watering hole.
The ground was cleared in a ten by ten square and my tent was staked earlier in the day.
Anticipation of the coming night’s adventure stung my tender mind as I could hardly wait.

At last the sun had fallen and mamma and me were on our way over the hill and into the wood.
I smiled laughingly as the pale white sphere from Mamas flashlight danced like a silly moon across the ground.
The crickets and tree frogs in the distance played in symphonic harmony as we walked to the tent without a sound.
The air of that summer night so long ago was thick as the honey from the bee hives of old man Joe.

It was mid, dead summer in the sultry south and I was getting to camp out alone for the first time.
I remember the smell of the forest when we at last arrived; I remember feeling of being so alive.
Mama unzipped the flap of the small tent and shot the flashlight around for a quick look inside.
She handed me a small paper sack that held a couple of tomato sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil.

She gave me a soft kiss and then she gave me my orders that I was not from this site to stray.
I watched in childlike wonderment the glow of the flashlight as it faded into the night as she walked back up the trail to our house the way we came.
The blackness of the forest overwhelmed my senses at first, and the sounds of the night were amplified from the very quietness itself.

Joy and peace filled my tiny soul as I lay on the ground watching the moon and the fireflies dance.
Looking back now it seems as if this were a hundred years ago, but in the reality of all things great and small…it was but to life a mere glance.

Life is good…memories such as these are forever…this is for you Mama, I hope as you dance from star to star in dimensions unknown and galaxies afar that you would agree…

J. Allen Wilson © 2007