Edge of the World

Edge of the World

The rich golden yellow is so distinctive that even now

my heart leaps in anticipation when I see one

curious to know what adventures lie inside.

It first arrived the summer I was eight.

Mrs. Conner who taught me in third grade

said I was  precocious and my mind needed

extra stimulation and so it came in the mail.

I remember Mama placing it in my hand

the glow of bright sunshine winking at me

 underneath the coarse brown paper sleeve.

I brought it to my face,

 the sharp smell of ink and expensive thick shiny paper

tickling my nose and making my fingers itch.

I carefully unwrapped it folding the brown sleeve aside

exposing the mysteries underneath.

The cover teased me,

catching my breath in my throat.

Nine year old fingers hovered over page 13

almost afraid to touch the image

where the boy King Tut’s sarcophagus was displayed

in brilliant gold;

perfect mimic to the journal itself.

Those fingers traced page 38 where the Quechua Indians

in the high Andes farmed the sharp sides of the mountains

18,000 feet in the air, the green fields 

like Grandmamas patchwork quilt

all in shades of green.

Nails chewed to the quick, I lingered on page 88

 where there was a map tucked inside.

Black and white penguins all in a row on the edge of an iceberg,

hanging off the edge of the world.

This shiny printed magic of exotic places became an escape.

When I was exhausted from shelling yet another bushel of butter beans

or bailing hay or breaking corn

 and my fingers were bleeding and sore, 

from all the chores a farm kid must do.

 Or yearning for just one ice cream cone I didn’t have to share 

with my sister when she had already eaten hers.

I would ease the latest one off the corner of the book shelf,

sprawl in the corner of the floor and my mind would escape

to those tombs and pyramids in Egypt

where I was a famous lady adventurer

riding camels through the sand.

 Hiking the Andes looking for another lost city or tribe.

The page would turn and I found myself

 wrapped in layers of fur and riding a small boat

 as I inched close enough to photograph 

those penguins while not falling off the edge of the world.

When I left home there were 10 years of those journals 

 filling 3 shelves on the bookcase. 

 The next trip home 

found those treasured, tattered and dog eared journals gone.

My childhood erased in a trip to the dump.

But sometimes; when I’m tired and feeling really blue

and overworked from life’s never ending demands

I close my eyes and find myself back in the sand

digging into a brand new tomb

 finding a lost tribe high in the Andes

or wrapped in fur and hugging tight to the edge of the world.