Palette

The playground slide was yellow I think.
Though I was too young to really remember.

But I know the dirt was blood-red
    when my brother and I scrambled up and down the sides of giant African anthills,
    screeching for fun.
Calling crazily at each other as if we ruled the world from these castles.

We chased along zig-zag footpaths tunneled out of tropical growth,
    green and pungent with wild promise.
Scents of unknown blooms, musky, foetid, wrapped around my tongue. Nose. Mouth.

Hot-blooded bronze suns burnt me, unhindered by SPF cream
    while I swam and dived in rolling seas, as clear and blue as my eyes.
    Luminous. And boundless as my childish imagination.

I reached for sunglasses and hat one day.
Look - that's me in the 'Jackie O' sunnies with my daughters. One. Then two.
I'm wearing the rose-coloured t-shirt and eating brown bread peanut butter sarmies.

I wore the same shirt when I gathered baskets of Babys' Breath
    pale as nearly forgotten good-byes,
    and thinned out sleeping beds of soft scented French Lavender.

Today I sit on my favourite cushioned chair and sift through my photographs.
The black and white one shows my mothers face
    and I remember again
    when she took me to the park to play on the slide.