Where have they gone- / The yellow-billed duck on the edge of the tub, / The Santa Claus soap, the atomic sub, / The tattered tiger with one blue eye / As bright as the fiercest African sky? / Though I look and I search as hard as I can, / All I see now is a tall young man… / Where are they now… / The battered remains of a merry-go-round / That once emitted a rollicking sound- / (A carousel can be hammered apart, / But you can’t break the tune in a blue horse’s heart) / The age-stooped giraffe, the sea-going pail, / The boat with the impossibly purple sail- / The rabbit-eared night-light that flickered till dawn – / Where, oh where, oh where have they gone? /  
I go down through the years, through laughter and tears / Down corridors haunted by old hopes and fears- / Though I measure and probe and remember and scan, / All I see now is a tall young man.

cr Maria Caporale Shecktor c:1970