The Kindergarten Cartologist

I am fascinated by naive maps. In the late 1980's my college art professor handmade a map of SoHo and the surrounding areas for a field trip and wrote "bad guys" in the area where he and his wife, also an art professor, were previously mugged. I chuckled to myself at the "here be monsters" caption. More recently, a blond, slightly mischievous cherub at daycare surreptitiously slid a folded slip of paper to me under the door of the room in which I was working. It was one of many treasure maps that he created indicating my house and a hidden treasure. (Apparently his dad or grandpa took him and his brother metal detecting.) Aside from the fact that pirates did not generally bury gold doubloons in landlocked Pennsylvania, I quickly discovered my real treasure was in asking him to describe the features of his maps, which included a place where "witches fell on their bottoms in the mud" and such imaginative details.

In this spirit I decided to write my home challenge poem about my childhood yard in northern New Jersey through the lens of a very young child.

I grab my coveted box of “crowns,”

The big Crayola set that Santa brought

With treasured crayons of gold, silver, and copper

And a built-in sharpener.

I plot out my acre and a quarter yard

On a cheap, gray sheet of my scribble pad.

I draw the brown earth of the dirt pile

In the front yard

Near the road

Under the protective shade of the tulip tree-

Chris pushing the red metal toy Tonka truck,

The one with a hole in the windshield

From Steve’s BB gun,

Down dirt roads on a safari

Of green plastic dinosaurs

Jeanette brought home from the A&P

Long before Jurassic Park was a dream...

I depict our muddy trail into the garage

Splashes of dirt on the white “back bathroom” sink

Brown mud coating the rough white bar of Lava soap.

I use my gray and black crayons,

Capturing the rough texture of the gravel driveway

That hurt my feet

Clad in flip-flops from Grand-Way.

The driveway we gladly shoveled,

Scraping layers of fluffy white snow

When Dad’s black radio announced

A school closing

From the metallic chrome Formica kitchen table

In the predawn winter darkness.

Next, I draw Mom’s rock garden

With prickly hens and chicks

“Don’t step on my flowers

Getting out of Dad’s car!”

The evergreen bushes in front of the windows

Dress in colorful lights at Christmas

And I carefully sketch the slate gray stepping stones

That led to the front door step

And color the purple and white crocuses

That lined the pathway

And heralded the Easter Bunny’s arrival.

I carefully select the purple-blue crayon

To make the myrtle blossoms on top of the hill

And draw the remnants of the white iron bench

And the worn plastic rabbit,

Unlike the fluffy brown cotton tails

That got amazingly close to the preschool me

As I sat motionless at dusk.

I draw yellow pinpoints

Representing the flashes of fireflies

In the dwindling after-supper twilight of summer.

Then I draw the gray, weathered wooden cross

With the faded pink plastic flower

That marks the animal graves

In which the kitty, the bunny, and the bird

Rest eternally, wrapped lovingly in blankets

And interred in subterranean shoeboxes.

The kitty and the bunny were beloved pets,

But “Blackie,”

A hapless bird Mom thought poisoned

And tried to nurse back to life,

Sadly succumbed.

We reverently committed him to the grassy green ground

And the red-heart Love of the One

Dwelling in bright yellow Glory light

Who hears the thud of fallen black feathers

In the densest of green woods.

I draw myself rolling down the hill

In tickly, itchy green grass

And then the tan and red Flexible Flyer sled

Taking flight over compacted white snow

And glaring ice.

Then I draw the texture of mowed green grass

Carpeting the pathway between the trees

Leading to Great Aunt Anna’s house,

Not forgetting the pale yellow and white honeysuckle blossoms

Along the way-

The ones Mom’s taught me to pull apart,

Dropping the clear sweet nectar on our red tongues.

I also sketch the lavender lilac bushes

Outside our bedroom windows,

Wafting their sweet reassuring scent

In the bright morning light

After a night of dark and scary monsters in the closet

And under my bed.

I draw the gray wires and brown wood

For the black and white Dutch bunny’s hutch

And depict the blackberry bushes behind it

And the hulking remains of Great Uncle Frank’s milk truck

With the rusty mattress coils tangled in those briars.

Chris and I kept digging in the dirt,

Hopeful to find antique treasures

Dad dismissed as Uncle Frank’s junk.

Mom always said Aunt Anna gave a strip of land to her and Dad-

A wedding gift-

And I imagined the mowed strip beyond the garden fence was that present.

I lightly sketch out the falling down wire fence

Holding inside Mom’s rhubarb patch

That supplied her celebrated pies

And blueberry bushes under nets

Which filled more bird stomachs than human ones.

I draw a stray orange pumpkin or so

But recall all the sprouting wildflowers

Our Golden Guide identified...

Black-eyed Susans,

Daisies,

And Yarrow vs. Queen Anne’s Lace.

I also depict the sticky white sap oozing from a green milkweed plant,

The clover chains I tied,

And dandelion puffs I blew in wishes across the lawn,

Wafting into the brown trunks and green leaves

Of poorly tended fruit trees.

Black and yellow bees buzzed

On the windfallen, misshapen apples

From Jeanette and Steve’s trees.

I sketch branches heavily burdened

From the ample peach harvest

Of Elizabeth’s rain-drenched tree,

But my small pear tree yielded only dark brown knobs

And I draw the green leaves only

On Chris’s smaller barren plum tree.

I carefully trace the circumference of the swimming pool

Shiny metal standing above ground

And draw the humming filter

And badminton net

Of anticipated summer BBQ’s.

Deep green bushes surround

The light gray cement of the patio

And the steps where overly-confident raccoons,

Skunks, and opossums

Approached the glass sliding door

And left muddy pawprints

In their nightly begging rituals

Seeking Meow Mix,

Marshmallows,

And Oreos

Dunked in a water dish.

Next I draw the two Sears swing sets

Older blue stripes and newer candy-cane red

Both repainted over the years-

My favorite plastic swing

And the horsey Chris rode,

But Dad once wrapped us in baby blankets

In hopes the hypnotic movement

Of the glider

Would bring sweet sleep.

Then I map out the “woods”

Filling in the woodpiles

And the brick pile

On the overgrown trail to our neighbor’s house.

I sketch both plywood platforms

Of Steve’s treehouse

And the rope swing,

Not forgetting the tire swing up the pathway

Right over the poison ivy patch!

“Leaves of three,

Let it be!”

Yet the dirt bike trail continued,

Through the brown tree vines,

On to the green water

And the forbidden lands

Around the power station.

I print a stark KEEP OUT sign in black and red!

Our brick ranch has long ago been demolished,

Replaced with a McMansion,

The animal graves desecrated,

And the gentle grass paved over with inflexible tennis courts.

I've grown up-

Replaced my "crowns" with a keyboard

With which I give voice to memories

That cannot be evicted from my heart.