Someone asked me a while ago what “Boy Scout Camp” (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) was all about. Well, on one level it’s about Boy Scout camp, which, for me, was a defining event in growing up.

On a different level, however, it is about that point in our lives when we learn that we are more than just the creatures of our environment.

It is about developing a better understanding of the world around us: how to benefit from what it gives us, and overcome the challenges it places in front of us.

Boy Scout camp was that watershed event for me. But for all of us, there are points in life where we have the opportunity to begin to realize our potential, and perhaps be more than we ever thought we could be.

We are no longer the “rabbits trapped”, but learn to live outside the “rabbit hole”.

Glenn K. Currie

 

Boy Scout Camp

 

Rain pounded

The cabin roof.

Drum beats on snares

Shrouding

Rabbits trapped.

It was scary at first,

Then soothing,

As we fell asleep

To the forest’s rhythms.

 

It was us

Against the world.

Capture the flag,

Or clean latrines.

Learn nature’s secrets

Or bleed in its barbed wire.

We played games of life

In pastures

Where children grew.

 

We lay on battlefields

Of crushed grass,

Reading secret messages

Sent to us by a million stars.

And we found our way

Through dark forests,

To the sanctuary

Of  friendly campfires.

 

In the end

We learned about life.

Trappers

Taught us

To survive the snares.

And to see

The world

Outside

The rabbit hole.