I look for you under the apple boughs Laden with blushing pink blossoms. I search in the orchard amid the trees of orange, keno and sweet lime. Where are you? I wonder. Where’d you vanish?

The empty swing, The merry-go-round, and the see-saw is bare; vacantly beckoning me, their souls bereft of joy. No, they do not mock me, but they  remind of time that passed all too swiftly.

Oh, what happened? Why’d you flee, my nonage? What you left behind are the bare bones of my childhood and the skeleton of regret that creaks of a life that I didn't dream or seek but surely got.