Inexpressible Joy [Rev]

I want to write, the Duchess said, a book about
all the memories of our youth - how I cried each
night about Peter Pan’s plight in getting a hiding
every night - and asking Alice to assist since she
can remember nothing else and asks: what else


happened when we were toddlers and beyond?
Alice thought of the music and the singing - & of
playing the game of speaking other languages, of
swinging on the jungle gym, swimming in a small
zinc pool, of a decorated wheelbarrow full of

presents ostensibly left by Father Christmas - of
wearing long white gowns & being angels as our
brothers Attila and Peter Pan were shepherds; the
Queen-of-Hearts reading us Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’
& The Scarlet Pimpernel, singing lullabies and

playing piano so we sang along, also the Duchess
& Alice running about ecstatically on aunt Morticia
& uncle Machiavelli’s visit, the fun it was when we
jumped on beds from cupboards above - with well-
deserved punishment afterwards, watching home-

movies screened on a sheet, riding horses on the
drive-in* magic Merry-Go-Round, Conan buying us
a large chocolate each and serving fish-&-chips on
newspaper - the Queen-of-Hearts nearly fainting on
discovering this heresy, grandma Alice-Cinderella 

waking all with sweet tea in bed every morning, and
taking Alice to get glasses and she could see clearly
for the first time ever - an inexpressible joy, so many
memories, so little time to write it all down…


[* Velskoen Drive-in, Randburg, 1970’s]