The Fearful Child

As a child I parleyed with animals, stuffed and real. Making my kitten pilot of a boot, I guided from one end of a string the dizzy flight and collapse. I was fearful of people as well as things, and my faithful toy shepherd with his painted face sat by me on the bed in the gloom. I was disdainful of dolls as weak people. In the favorite story I told myself my parents were made over into fair-limbed, brave angels who smiled into their god’s eyes when summoned. I was benevolent, afraid to let go of this image at night because I couldn’t hide deep enough under the covers to be overlooked by death, the angel bending over me who had been wronged. I read histories of queens, regal and barbarian, whose leopard’s eyes restrained man or wild beast. I rambled along tidal rivers and in the marshes where the green-golden grasses dazzled the sun, and felt the ache of sea-air in my lungs. I saw water spume near Atlantic cliffs. I examined lichen. I saw great light drown darkness. Then at thirteen I lay in the bleak bed before sleep and heard the pleadings and the murderous kisses; and burned, like a bear his fat, my soul. I quaked at the sound of my voice whispering,No, or turned my face to the wall and wept salt onto my knuckles. In the serene light of sun-up, before sparrows tumbled up from the earth, whispering and singing, and the exquisite sea and sky mobilized their heavy, blue currents, I was consoled. I walked through beauty without knowing why and told no one, wanting nothing else to touch me and never to move anyone in any way. I hid away from the house and learned the dark was not a dream but could show the pale gravel of a real driveway. I saw for the first time later the new moon and the full moon in one piece. I no longer feared the night, night like a bear at ease in his wide habitat. In the greatness of such space I said,This is me.