We drive the cattle out from field corners
Herding heavy buttocks, running legs,
Towards the gateway of our made decisions,
The thousand shafts of focused mind
By which we make our world.

And find, sudden and mysterious,
As if we had dreamed our own waking,
That is we who have passed through the gateway,
Driven the great thundering dream of possessed knowledge
Through the boundary of farm to wilderness,
To wake, awed by immensity.

As if childhood had returned,
Drowned in the scent of thyme and roses,
Enchanting, beyond comprehension,
Brought into focus by the slow powers of learning,
Received wisdom, the taking of decisions,
The clear eye of adulthood, walking forward, seeing,
Sure of its own wakefulness,
Passing through the gateway
At the boundary of the world it has tamed,
To be drowned in the scent of rose and thyme,
Drifting out of the untamed wilderness.

THE GATEWAY
Jane Hayter-Hames

We swung on the wrought iron gate
Beside the stonewall, and were chased off,
Childhood full of garden scents
Always bigger than comprehension,
Small creatures with vibrant senses
Struggling to corral the world into knowledge.

Girls whispering in corridors and corners,
Whose bodies have passed through a strange portal
And the sky has changed, the horizon shifted,
Shadows of unborn creatures move
That they might yet give birth to;
Girls giggle nervously, stare with older eyes.

We stood by the gate in spring sun
Watching bullocks glow on young grass,
Counting, discussing, we weigh the coin
Of our power and responsibility,
The world has increased, our knowledge
Flies out like a lasso to catch and hold.