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Before Enid Blyton was rendered impotent
by political correctness and Noddy no longer
slept with Big Ears, What do 7 year olds care
about males who share the same bed?
In the world Dame Slap embraced corporal punishment
and Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dick had adventures,
I found my Magical Faraway tree. Little-sister-proof
it stood, its dark waxy leaves concealing
its true intention – a bastion for the outcast.

The lowest branch, twice my height, reached
by scaling the rickety paling fence and straddling
the saddle-dipped welcoming bough. Evergreen
it was, while I, deciduous; stripped bare by the wintry
indifference of others, lashed by the icy tongue
of schoolyard taunts would find refuge in
the wisha-washa wisha-washa chant of the tree.

I found an abandoned nest – the previous occupants
now residing in our cat’s belly – and placed it
in a V, decorated as a bower-bird with speckled blue
eggshells, marbles and buttons, treasures that only a child
could appreciate; things soon discarded if left in the house.
My dolls I would perch in strategic positions and they listened
avidly as I told them stories heard at school of the Faraway Lands.

In Summer the purple fruit of the Lillypilly would sate me,
tart but juicy, and the tree would be alive with the rustle
of birds hopping from branch to branch, leaving violet
splotches on the ground. Cooler than in the sun,
but warmer than the chill inside our home.

One day I came home from school to find my favorite
branch gone: "The neighbors complained about it hanging
over the fence." Cut smooth to the trunk, the weeping
sap of the wound mirrored how I felt. My Dad had found
my nest on the ground and threw it away.
But I no longer needed the tree to escape –

I had discovered the magic of books.