After hours of digging, we finally quit. My sister and I were going to dig to China (or at least discover some buried treasure in the process). I guess we choose the wrong spot. Like most children, visions of treasure chests often danced in our eyes as we longed to find that one map that would lead us to “x marks the spot.”

I never found that map.

Over time, the passion of childhood dreams is buried beneath layers of pain and disappointment. Hope that is frustrated again and again goes underground. But it still bubbles, and once in a while we feel fleeting sensations of this childhood ache for Christmas magic, buried treasure and the world of fairies. Chesterton and Lewis realized that this we wouldn’t have this longing if it wasn’t for something real.

Here is a delightful verse from my favorite poet Bobi Jones (translated by Joseph Clancy). Hope you enjoy, and may it stir a little longing in your soul.

Labrador
By Bobi Jones

Cold ugly lady with beads
of icebergs around your sea
like stumps of teeth,

Uncivilized, empty, and fruitless apart
from the ore beneath your soil that is
a complex in the sub-conscious.

Out of sight your embryo, in
your wine cellars, the love child
deep beneath your desolation,

Is about to flourish like a fountain. Overhead
the sun is always moon
shining over the blossoms

Out of sight beneath the soil forever.
Singing was hid there,
colours are buried: here it is all

A waiting, all of it is about to come,
and the strain of holding the possibilities
inside, a discipline

We in Wales don’t know much about.