Care Bear ™

The god of childhood lives in the
rimu alcove at the foot of your bunk,

lives in the half light of a night
sparked bright by fat stars.

The god of childhood glows pink in the black,
the rainbow strapped across its belly a
cesarian of magic, a painful stitching of
the colour it costs to hold all your hope.

When you sleep in your bunk,
the struts made of manuka,
the step ladder your father's rendition of a
kauri's bones,

the god of childhood sheds its trade mark,
refuses to smile or open its arms wide,
refuses to tilt its head upward for a sweet hug.

It has business to be doing.

The god of childhood is putting on
psychic gumboots and kicking Barbie
off the ledge,

is opening the french windows and
observing the rats - the stenching pelts that
circumnavigate the edge just beyond where
your house casts a dim light out into the bush.

The rats are various.
The rats multiply easily and look toward your mothers bed.
The rats smell of cheap cask wine and
live in your fathers eyes past a certain hour.
The rats whisper about the changing geography of your body.
The rats are much better at math and
the girl rats are very pretty for rats.

The rats chew slowly, their eyes upon the house,
each purposeful nibble tearing another splinter from
the roots of big trees.

And the god of childhood is out on the
corrugated iron now, weaving the
passion fruit vines into a long rope and
whirling down to the mollusk shelled ground.

And the god of childhood is shaping pipi halves into
sharp edged ninja stars, and thripping the
white blades out into the low lying bush
where they meet with muted wet thuds.

The god of childhood is sitting, lotus position
on the driveway. Eyes closed,  saying
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ

And the god of childhood is beating its way
out into the damp foliage, getting down on
its knees and reddening its soft cotton face.