Sat in the toy corner,
withdrawn from the
conversations around him.
He opens a world of
imagination, where the
wooden blocks are
windows into his own
world.
The lights above his head
are giant stars that move
with the hurricane of an
opened door.
He has little past to linger
into dark rooms, only the
magic of an uncluttered
mind.
For a moment, he closes
his eyes, not to shut
out the light, but to peep
beyond the sky's horizon.
He takes no clues from
what has been, his thoughts
are new born from a soul
that is still free.
There are smiles from those
who look on, but what he sees
remains secret.
Though his world will be broken,
when memory's shadows dim
his bright lights,
and his imagination will wander
to what might have been.
Rowland Hughes is a Welsh writer and poet. He was born, and lived until his late teens, in the Rhondda Valley, from where he still draws most of his inspiration. He worked as a Master Decorator and studied trades in the construction industry. He later became a Local Authority Assistant Surveyor. Due to ill health, he retired in 1997. In 1998, he joined a Cardiff University Creative Writing Group. He loves to observe people, places and nature, writing in bustling cafés and the confines of his writing shed.
This is a beautiful poem - incredibly perceptive and delicate in the way it ingeniously avoids trying to tell us what the child at play in the world of his own imagination is seeing or thinking, because the poet/observer has no real way of knowing that. Instead the focus is largely on what the external scene suggests: the wooden blocks that offer 'windows' into his world, the lights above his head that are 'giant stars' etc. There are also some nice factual observations about the the storms and hurricanes of life that await all young people beyond the magical world of childhood. I especially liked the way these were first hinted at in the line: 'the giant stars that move…
This is such a fine poem that I am tempted to compare it with Rilke. It seems to really penetrate into the core of a child's being.