A dream world for growing up

I have been mightily busy with editing exercises and other stuff, as a dearth of posts and visits may have indicated.  I dropped behind hopelessly on Pooky’s Poems prompts, but there was one I was determined to follow, and so I present the one of the 11^th May, ‘write a poem set in the street where you grew up’.

Knysna panorama from The Heads. (wiki)

A Place of Dreams

I lived in many streets
When I was still a boy –
One, recollection greets
With all the greatest joy. 

By far my favourite one of the streets where I grew up  (Google Earth)

I did not know its name:
‘The Heads’ was quite enough
To make quite sure that came
Our mail, and all that stuff. 

Front garden a lagoon;
The back part, really steep;
Roofed water tank quite soon
Served car on top to keep. 

Roof of ‘Summer Place’ formerly ‘Symphony’, and the view across the lagoon. (Google Earth)

And on the farther side
Green hillside was the view,
While up the river wide
Were mountains looming, too. 

An island to our right –
From causeway, access meant –
Heads mouth just out of sight
To left, where channel went. 

The view looking up the lagoon past Leisure Isle

And when it was low tide
To island we could go
On foot; at high we’d ride
A boat, which we would row. 

Games played upon the sand,
Where later we would swim;
The fishing there was grand,
If one should take the whim. 

‘Symphony’, the house my father built. (from a sketch by David Wightman included in his book ‘Heads and Tales’)

From upstairs bedroom, cast,
A line, left overnight,
And I would break my fast
On fish, with great delight. 

The Western Head (wiki)

A gentle little stroll
To where our street would end –
A place where breakers roll,
And mighty cliffs descend. 

Knysna Heads

The Blowhole would admit
A wave, without a doubt …
Explosively would spit
A mighty shower out! 

A spit of different kind
At end of Leisure Isle
Where pansy shells one’d find
When tide was out a while. 

Or, out across the hills,
To see the bushbuck roam,
With secret pathway thrills,
Where leopards had their home. 

And caves all massed with bats,
Near towering rocky spire;
Rock-rabbits having spats,
In altercations dire. 

These lived at Coney Glen –
On other side of hill –
We’d visit there, and then
The Dripping Well would thrill. 

Such recollections pour
In never-ending stream,
Each one produces more
Of what made up that dream … 

That street where I grew up,
Now known as George Rex Drive,
Most truly filled my cup,
And made me feel alive.

© Colonialist May 2014 (WordPress)