First Time Camping: a poem

I have not been accused

of being an outwardly adventurous

nor gregarious child

but I enjoyed the outdoors

so the first time my Girl Scout troop

went camping in platform tents

the one thing I remember isn’t

the creeking in old shoes down the riverbank or

the songs around the campfire or

the hikes to discover the forest or

the friends’ hands held fast but

that first night

finally drifting off to sleep in my cot

being awoken with the startling realization

that I could no longer breathe,

my sleeping bag twisted tight around me,

I having fallen off my cot,

off the platform,

caught between wood and tent

not unlike a spider wraps her prey,

me crying out,

knowing this is not the way I believe

Mother Nature

should caress and coddle her own

dear child,

me being one of soil and water

and sun

but not ready to return to earth yet,

exclaiming quietly in the dark

of the night

hoping the stars would hear me,

“Mommy?”

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold

September 15, 2020