Dreaming of Wildwood
There was a home
where I was wed ...
A magical home when you
entered it's gates...
Through rooms that voices still resonated
from the family who loved it
so dearly
but whom had to leave.
Where they grew up
with a family that filled each room.
With laughter and tears,
hide and seek, running up and down
it's gilded stairs.
To belong now to a family of two
that would fill it's rooms with the
sound of jazz music, an organ and the
swirling sound of a water color brush
casting images of barns,
ocean and beaches.
My parents nurtured it's
rebirth to splendor
in time for ...
My wedding to be,
only months after they bought
their dream home,
in the rear courtyard garden
amongst dear friends and family.
I slept there but only one night
wondering who's room I might be
dreaming in....
To gaze out the multi-paned
rippled glass to see where I would
say my vows to my Love....
I threw my bouquet
of white roses and baby's breath
from the small balcony
above the massive front door.
I felt like Juliet looking down...
My dream come true that day.
This home my children played
and explored in,
where the doors opened to soft breezes
and the
fountains mimicked their
sweet, high voices as they dipped
there tiny toes in the pool below.
Where taking the narrow, hidden staircase
would lead to a secret room that
was the old wine cellar.
Where slumber nights at Nana and Papa's
house was a time of tea parties,
make believe with dolls
and bubble baths in
the huge old bathtub off the
room they slept in.
Eva
She who sleeps in beauty....
We were all entranced by her.
She was always there in the garden
outside the courtyard.
Through the old wood gate you
opened on to her boudoir
where she napped unselfconsciously
in her nakedness
for us to admire and touch.
A story was told that one of the young sons
who played in this garden
once painted her nipples green....
His father was not happy
and the young boy washed
and rubbed the paint away
till Eva was pure once more.
He became a priest when he grew up.
My heart broke when
my parents sold Wildwood.
I had dreamed of my
daughters three
wedded in the gardens...
Now I can only pause as I
drive by to remember
in my mind the joyful days
spent here.
Eva...
She moved next door
to live in a new garden
where she is loved as
we loved her.
Wildwood's windows
are closed...
as though whoever lives
there now doesn't wish
her to live as she did.
Why?
Her gardens so overgrown
that the yard is shrouded
in bush and growth like
a Sleeping Beauty Castle.
The gazebo is gone...
where my daughters would
play as they skipped
on the large round steps
that would lead to the
rose garden their
Papa tended with care.
My heart is there...
Some homes
always are joyful.
They are full of a spirit
that comes from the happiness
that happened there.
My heart is there...
