A Bedtime Story (Poetry)

Child, you have no ear for rhymes,
your sullen-mouthed resentment
a mirror of our changing times,
reflects your discontentment -
you grumble, squirming, on my lap
and strain our generation gap.

I tell you tales of Wonderland,
of Jabberwocks and Alice
but your too-short attention span
destroys the fragile palace
a rich imagination drew
in magic words, to share with you.

I long to see your round-eyed face
grow rapt in concentration,
and thus relive, in private space,
a brief rejuvenation:
escaping, retrospectively,
in books my mother read to me.

For childhood passes, all too short,
ephemeral as glory,
and memory's like cobwebs caught
between the lines of story
that stretch, though passing years take hold,
and spin bright fantasies of gold.

What should produce a sunny smile
provokes a moody glower
unmoved by poetry or guile
of classic fairy power
that keeps me, spellbound, in its grip
but givves the modern child the slip.