Clouds of dust bathe legs and shoes, submerging
\nclothes\u00a0in drab, red hues, kicked up high by dusty shoes
\nlanding, hopping, landing.<\/p>\n
Hop two three and land. Hop and land. Then wait. And turn.<\/i>
\nGo back. And start again, again and yet again.<\/i><\/p>\n
She\u2019d started this some time before.
\nHop two three and land. Hop and land. Wait. Turn. Start again.
\n<\/i>Every day. She’d start her day this way. Each and every day<\/p>\n
since the ‘new short stay’ began
\na new ‘short stay’ to wait\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0another waiting
\nsince the long ‘short stay’\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 waiting
\nin\u00a0the camp near home\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 since
\nher\u00a0town was broken and
\nher\u00a0house was burned to dust.<\/p>\n
It’s picture grew more fuzzy, in her mind out in the day
\nthough\u00a0in her sleep in dreamlands, it was just a step away
\nguarded\u00a0in a magic ball of light, where she could go and play.
\nMaybe\u00a0dreamlands\u00a0was\u00a0the safest place to stay.<\/p>\n
Hopscotch was the easy way to go to dreamlands in the day
\nsince\u00a0the teachers stopped the class, they\u2019d taken all the books away
\n\u2018to\u00a0try and make us go back home,\u2019 she\u2019d heard her mother say.<\/p>\n
Smiling strangers sometimes came. They\u2019d say:
\n\u2018How do you feel?\u2019 \u2018What makes you sad?\u2019 \u2018What do you play?\u2019
\n\u2018What makes you glad?\u2019 \u2018What books do you read?\u2019<\/p>\n
Read?\u00a0Read what?\u00a0Didn\u2019t they know they\u2019d all been taken away?
\nBut she knew the books in dreamlands were all in there to stay.
\nHop two three and land. Hop and land. Wait. Turn. Start again.<\/i><\/p>\n
Soon the dreamlands came most days. And never really went away
\nin\u00a0there she played and went to school\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and read
\nthen\u00a0after school she went back home\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and read\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in there.\u00a0 And now
\nthe\u00a0dreamlands stayed all night\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and all throughout the endless day.<\/p>\n
Hop two three and land. Hop and land. Then wait. And turn.<\/i>
\nGo back. And start again\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>Again<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And yet again.<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This article was originally published in the March 2021 edition (vol. 120) of <\/em>Australian Rationalist.<\/strong><\/p>\n Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clouds of dust bathe legs and shoes, submerging clothes\u00a0in drab, red hues, kicked up high by dusty shoes landing, hopping,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":10478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[660],"coauthors":[662],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-art-humour","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10570,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/10570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}