260 Childhood poems

They will not be the same next time. The sayings so cute, just slightly off, will be corrected. Their eyes will be more skeptical, plugged in the more securely to the worldly buzz of television, alphabet, and street talk, culture polluting their gazes' pure blue. It makes you see at last the value of those boring aunts and neighbors (their smells of summer sweat and cigarettes, their faces like shapes of sky between shade-giving leaves) who knew you from the start, when you were zero, cooing their nothings before you could be bored or knew a name, not even your own, or how this world brave with hellos turns all goodbye.

Please raise your hand, whomever else of you has been a child, lost, in a market or a mall, without knowing it at first, following a stranger, accidentally thinking he is yours, your family or parent, even grabbing for his hands, even calling the word you said then for “Father,” only to see the face look strangely down, utterly foreign, utterly not the one who loves you, you who are a bird suddenly stunned by the glass partitions of rooms. How far the world you knew, & tall, & filled, finally, with strangers.

Alone with time, he waits for his parents to wake, a boy growing old at the dining room table, pressing into the pages of one of his father's big books the flowers he picked all morning in his mother's garden, magnolia, hibiscus, azalea, peony, pear, tulip, iris; reading in another book their names he knows, and then the names from their secret lives; lives alchemical, nautical, genital; names unpronounceable fascicles of italic script; secrets botanical description could never trace: accessory to empire, party to delusions of an afterlife, kin to the toothed, mouthed, furred, horned, brained. Flowers seem to a boy, who doesn't know better, like the winged, the walking, the swimming and crawling things abstracted from time, and stilled by inward gazing. Copying their pictures, replete with diagrams, he finds in the words for their parts, the accounts of their histories, and their scattered pollen, something to do with his own fate and the perfection of all dying things. And when it's time, he discovers in the kitchen the note left for him that says his parents have gone and will return by noon. And when it's time, the dove calls from its hiding place and leaves the morning greener and the one who hears the dove more alone.

We have a secret, just we three, The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry-tree; The bird told the tree, and the tree told me, And nobody knows it but just us three. But of course the robin knows it best, Because she built the—I shan't tell the rest; And laid the four little—something in it— I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute. But if the tree and the robin don't peep, I'll try my best the secret to keep; Though I know when the little birds fly about Then the whole secret will be out.

When the child's forehead, full of red torments, Implores the white swarm of indistinct dreams, There come near his bed two tall charming sisters With slim fingers that have silvery nails. They seat the child in front of a wide open Window where the blue air bathes a mass of flowers And in his heavy hair where the dew falls Move their delicate, fearful and enticing fingers. He listens to the singing of their apprehensive breath. Which smells of long rosy plant honey And which at times a hiss interrupts, saliva Caught on the lip or desire for kisses. He hears their black eyelashes beating in the perfumed Silence; and their gentle electric fingers Make in his half-drunken indolence the death of the little lice Crackle under their royal nails. Then the wine of Sloth rises in him, The sigh of an harmonica which could bring on delirium; The child feels, according to the slowness of the caresses Surging in him and dying continuously a desire to cry.

A boarded-up house. Ransacked inside — broken glass and toppled tables, chairs overturned, books shaken for hidden money. There are mouths in dreams full of gold teeth, chewing bread and meat. The body is hollow as flame and will burn down anything if pointed straight. A bird flies in through the door, then flutters at the window. Although he is tiny, I am too afraid to help him escape. I’ve made myself another house. I hum to fill its empty rooms. I fold in like saloon doors closing, then swinging out, keeping out thieves.

In unexperienced infancy Many a sweet mistake doth lie: Mistake though false, intending true; A seeming somewhat more than view; That doth instruct the mind In things that lie behind, And many secrets to us show Which afterwards we come to know. Thus did I by the water’s brink Another world beneath me think; And while the lofty spacious skies Reversèd there, abused mine eyes, I fancied other feet Came mine to touch or meet; As by some puddle I did play Another world within it lay. Beneath the water people drowned, Yet with another heaven crowned, In spacious regions seemed to go As freely moving to and fro: In bright and open space I saw their very face; Eyes, hands, and feet they had like mine; Another sun did with them shine. ’Twas strange that people there should walk, And yet I could not hear them talk; That through a little watery chink, Which one dry ox or horse might drink, We other worlds should see, Yet not admitted be; And other confines there behold Of light and darkness, heat and cold. I called them oft, but called in vain; No speeches we could entertain: Yet did I there expect to find Some other world, to please my mind. I plainly saw by these A new antipodes, Whom, though they were so plainly seen, A film kept off that stood between. By walking men’s reversèd feet I chanced another world to meet; Though it did not to view exceed A phantom, ’tis a world indeed, Where skies beneath us shine, And earth by art divine Another face presents below, Where people’s feet against ours go. Within the regions of the air, Compassed about with heavens fair, Great tracts of land there may be found Enriched with fields and fertile ground; Where many numerous hosts In those far distant coasts, For other great and glorious ends Inhabit, my yet unknown friends. O ye that stand upon the brink, Whom I so near me through the chink With wonder see: what faces there, Whose feet, whose bodies, do ye wear? I my companions see In you, another me. They seemèd others, but are we; Our second selves these shadows be. Look how far off those lower skies Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyes I can them reach. O ye my friends, What secret borders on those ends? Are lofty heavens hurled ’Bout your inferior world? Are yet the representatives Of other peoples’ distant lives? Of all the playmates which I knew That here I do the image view In other selves, what can it mean? But that below the purling stream Some unknown joys there be Laid up in store for me; To which I shall, when that thin skin Is broken, be admitted in.

exploring the farm as a child I would part the tall grasses, moving through the dirt beneath the thick rushes. consisting mainly of overgrown clover and clusters of foliage, I’d map the distance that made up our property. it seemed endless, that innocent drive to run further beneath the ceiling of leaves, expanses of earth shifting beneath a child’s slight weight. I would imagine how far the landscape stretched. one afternoon when my parents were at the races I followed the pasture floor to the fenceline at the back of the property. wanting to go further, I hovered a blade of grass over the ticking wire as I had watched Dad do so many times, to test if it was safe to cross. feeling nothing, I wrapped my hands around one of the copper threads — struck by that first surge through the body, electricity running like a vein of blood beneath the skin as though a voice screamed through a haze, blinding my eyes and rattling my mind with panic. no longer wishing to know more, to understand, I stood startled at the trapped earth and wires that had run a painful electric current through my body. it would have been foolish to even attempt climbing over into the neighboring paddock. all I could do then was give up.

O the Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa; An' he's the goodest man ever you saw! He comes to our house every day, An' waters the horses, an' feeds 'em hay; An' he opens the shed—an' we all ist laugh When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf; An' nen—ef our hired girl says he can— He milks the cow fer 'Lizabuth Ann.— Ain't he a' awful good Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! W'y, The Raggedy Man—he's ist so good, He splits the kindlin' an' chops the wood; An' nen he spades in our garden, too, An' does most things 'at boys can't do.— He clumbed clean up in our big tree An' shooked a' apple down fer me— An' 'nother 'n', too, fer 'Lizabuth Ann— An' 'nother 'n', too, fer The Raggedy Man.— Ain't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! An' The Raggedy Man one time say he Pick' roast' rambos from a' orchurd-tree, An' et 'em—all ist roast' an' hot!— An' it's so, too!—'cause a corn-crib got Afire one time an' all burn' down On "The Smoot Farm," 'bout four mile from town— On "The Smoot Farm"! Yes—an' the hired han' 'At worked there nen 'uz The Raggedy Man!— Ain't he the beatin'est Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! The Raggedy Man's so good an' kind He'll be our "horsey," an' "haw" an' mind Ever'thing 'at you make him do— An' won't run off—'less you want him to! I drived him wunst way down our lane An' he got skeered, when it 'menced to rain, An' ist rared up an' squealed and run Purt' nigh away!—an' it's all in fun! Nen he skeered ag'in at a' old tin can ... Whoa! y' old runaway Raggedy Man! Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! An' The Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes, An' tells 'em, ef I be good, sometimes: Knows 'bout Giunts, an' Griffuns, an' Elves, An' the Squidgicum-Squees 'at swallers the'rselves: An', wite by the pump in our pasture-lot, He showed me the hole 'at the Wunks is got, 'At lives 'way deep in the ground, an' can Turn into me, er 'Lizabuth Ann! Er Ma, er Pa, er The Raggedy Man! Ain't he a funny old Raggedy Man? Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! An' wunst, when The Raggedy Man come late, An' pigs ist root' thue the garden-gate, He 'tend like the pigs 'uz bears an' said, "Old Bear-shooter'll shoot 'em dead!" An' race' an' chase' 'em, an' they'd ist run When he pint his hoe at 'em like it's a gun An' go "Bang!—Bang!" nen 'tend he stan' An' load up his gun ag'in! Raggedy Man! He's an old Bear-shooter Raggedy Man! Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! An' sometimes The Raggedy Man lets on We're little prince-children, an' old King's gone To git more money, an' lef' us there— And Robbers is ist thick ever'where; An' nen—ef we all won't cry, fer shore— The Raggedy Man he'll come and "splore The Castul-halls," an' steal the "gold"— An' steal us, too, an' grab an' hold An' pack us off to his old "Cave"!—An' Haymow's the "cave" o' The Raggedy Man!— Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man! The Raggedy Man—one time, when he Wuz makin' a little bow-'n'-orry fer me, Says "When you're big like your Pa is, Air you go' to keep a fine store like his— An' be a rich merchunt—an' wear fine clothes?— Er what air you go' to be, goodness knows?" An' nen he laughed at 'Lizabuth Ann, An' I says "'M go' to be a Raggedy Man!— I'm ist go' to be a nice Raggedy Man!" Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

Recall the carousel. Its round and round. Its pink lights blinking off and on. The children’s faces painted garish colors against an institutional wall. And the genetics. The We won’t be here too long...Do not step off... The carousel? Do you recall? As if we were our own young parents suffering again after so many hundreds of hours of bliss. And even the startling fact that what had always been feared might come to pass: A familiar sweater in a garbage can. A surgeon bent over our baby, wearing a mask. But surely you recall how happily and for how long we watched our pretty hostages go round. They waved at us too many times to count. Their dancing foals. Their lacquered mares. Even a blue-eyed hunting hound was still allowed back then.