When I was small, the sky was wide,  

A canvas smeared with dragons’ flight,  

Each cloud a ship, each breeze a guide  

To lands that vanished with the night.  

I spoke to trees, and they replied  

In rustling tongues of leaf and bark.  

The moon would wink, the stars would slide  

To light my dreams when nights were dark.  

But clocks grew loud, and maps grew clear,  

The dragons shrank to vapor trails.  

The trees stood still, too old to hear,  

And fairy dust turned into mail.  

Now logic rules where wonder played,  

And silence fills the attic chest  

Where once my cardboard kingdoms stayed,  

Now folded, faded, laid to rest.  

Yet sometimes, in the quiet hours,  

A shadow stirs behind my eyes.  

A whisper from forgotten towers,  

A flicker in the shrinking skies.