Nothing quite imprints on the memory like the places we have called home. Whether the tiny apartment you spent a semester abroad in or the childhood abode you said goodbye to upon leaving for college, I bet you can still remember every detail. Who else could recall, with tender nostalgia, the dog-shaped discoloration just above your bedroom window or the careful art of jerking open the sticky back door? These are the details that occupy our mind at coincidental moments, unexpectedly blooming in a burst of familiarity. In short—the places we live in form our experiences.
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| Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash |
If I were to ask you for your favourite memories of autumns past, you could regale me with tales of blazing campfires, arduous forest hikes, or peaceful afternoons spent apple picking. But I would bet that raking the front lawn, biking around your neighbourhood, or spending chilly evenings sitting on the back porch are just as much part of your fall experience. We spend more time at home than anywhere else; it makes sense that something as ubiquitous as a season would grow in our minds rooted in home.
I should acknowledge that several of the autumn activities I have mentioned are unique to the suburban experience. Growing up in a residential area myself, when the season turns to autumn, I tend to amplify the forbidden corners of my neighbourhood with a strange romanticization—a Michael Myers induced fantasy of dark thrills and wistful foreboding. While the reality is much less exciting, even the most innocuous of places contain their own shade of darkness. I have channelled my feelings on the matter into today's post: a poem titled Bring the children in.
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| Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash |
I wrote the poem's first lines sitting on my back porch, contemplating the merits of a “reptilian breeze". From there, it was all fun, taking the seemingly innocuous features of my suburb and transforming them into harbingers of doom. I imagine this poem to take place at dusk, with lengthening shadows warping the familiar comforts of the quiet neighbourhood and welcoming the onset of night.
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| Photo by Caseen Kyle Registos on Unsplash |
The heart of the poem, crystalized in the last three lines, I conceived on a rare brisk August weekend after biking to a local woodland in a fit of restlessness. The refrain “Bring the children in” was added very early in the writing process, urging the need to protect amidst the fearful omens of the intervening lines. However, who truly needs protection and the motives behind protecting may not be as apparent as it seems. When the sun blinks shut and all that remains to comfort you are the stars and (hopefully) this blog post, consider the following: does darkness only change appearance? Or does it touch something more fundamental—changing without and within?
Bring the children in
Wind chimes whisper in the reptilian breeze
Bring the children in
Pregnant cloud spittle: twilit spectre’s sneeze
Bring the children in
Streetlamps alight in an impending cortege
Bring the children in
Cobblestones tremble with bygone rage
Bring the children in
Blackened pines swell with monumental power
Bring the children in
Harbouring cruel secrets within tenebrous bowers
Bring the children in
Bloodshot eyes bulge through worn latticed fences
Bring the children in
Biding their time in uncanny consensus
Bring the children in
Creeping and peeping through back garden back-ways
Bring the children in
The bats and the gnats speak in suburban malaise
Bring the children in
Grass-guarded crickets play the sharpening scythe
Bring the children in
The illusion of absence makes attentive ear writhe
Bring the children in
Spiritual smoke sways the stoutest of mites
Bring the children in
Willingly they march into the grim embrace of night
Bring the children in
Beware frenzied low places, beware ominous larks
Bring the children in
Beware the evils your children get up to in the dark
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