WORLD

My sister’s playing with her Barbie dolls:
“Will you come over for tea?”
With miniature cakes and kettles so small
And a beach rug next to the imaginary sea.
She holds them in her hands,
Makes them run over the sand
And talk to each other happily.
She’s named them, too,
Clara Brown and Mary Lou,
Lucinda and Rosemary Green.
And dressed them in laces, ribbons and shoes
That glimmer and shimmer and sheen.
They do what she wants
As she dances them about.
They whisper, they talk, they scream, they shout.
She speaks through them, creating a reality.
They seem right there,
Real and fair.
Living and thinking in their world
Of teapots and cutlery and plates and parties and shoes that fall off at every turn.
It’s all an illusion, a dream, a fantasy
That she creates in her thoughts:
The picnic spot,
The sandwich, the sand and the sea.
They’re lifeless and thoughtless
Non-existent in her hands
Their world’s an illusion, the sea and the sand…
All in her mind
Of a childlike kind.
She doesn’t know much
About the world as such…
Yet she has the right
To make her dolls live a life
That she’s made up.
It’s a child’s cup
Of tea.
To create a world
Be it with pictures or with words
And make it a reality
For those who live in it
And lead them by the nose
Helpless and clueless,
Following, wherever their road goes.
On and on and on…To where?
She alone knows.
That little girl of three.