The bunny’s on a coffee break
or late lunch, but
otherwise absent for
unlucky us, who
have walked here
from Vancouver’s storied West End
in hopes of  an audience and
a ride through the temperate
rainforest of Stanley Park,
our daughter’s suggestion
to distract this four-year-old boy
briefly in our care
while she and his father
try to recreate
one of those afternoons
and evenings
they used to take for granted
in the good old days.

Each miniature railcar is
a study in scale, an exercise
in memory,
what it was like once
to be this small,
not to have to hunch,
the same revelation I had
visiting my own children’s
elementary schools years ago,
noting the height
of water fountains, the
lowered urinals
in the boy’s washroom,
those ridiculous desks
parents sat in
during interviews,
whatever dignity they might have
negated simply by their
diminished stature,
a lesson itself in
what it means to be a child.

The goal is to spot the eggs,
a task
that is not a task,
since they are everywhere,
gold ones, purple ones,
large and  small,
piled under Jurassic ferns,
on top of antique farm equipment,
next to stylized native carvings
of ravens and eagles –
a contrast that offers
an instant course
in post-colonial studies,
as well as a hint that
this train is the plot-line
of several narratives,
Christmas being the biggest hit,
or so I’m told.

We roll through tunnels
where orange and
purple mushrooms glow,
lit, presumably,
by hidden LEDs and
eerily reminiscent of Alice, who
also has nothing
to do with this season of
fertility and renewal, but
a black tunnel
is a scary thing for children
of all ages,
too stark a metaphor
for another kind of darkness and
our dopey hope
of light at the other end.

When we disembark,
the bunny has reappeared,
holding court and
glad-handing his adoring fans,
high-fiving
the pint-sized public,
who reach out to touch
their idol,
a train-ride too late
for our disenchanted grandson,
who, once snubbed, is unforgiving,
opting instead
to move along and forego
any photo-op
in favour of the candy hunt,
where he hopes
to clean up, the way he did
on the way here
when we stopped
at a patch of dandelions,
happy to take his sweet time
blowing to smithereens
each and every one.

– Terence Young