God has pity on kindergarten children, He pities school children — less. But adults he pities not at all. He abandons them, And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours In the scorching sand To reach the dressing station, Streaming with blood. But perhaps He will have pity on those who love truly And [...]

My child wafts peace. When I lean over him, It is not just the smell of soap. All the people were children wafting peace. (And in the whole land, not even one Millstone remained that still turned). Oh, the land torn like clothes That can’t be mended. Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of [...]

You’re sad because you’re sad. It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical. Go see a shrink or take a pill, or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll you need to sleep. Well, all children are sad but some get over it. Count your blessings. Better than that, buy a hat. Buy a coat or [...]

When I think of the many people who privately despise children, I can’t say I’m completely shocked, having been one. I was not exceptional, uncomfortable as that is to admit, and most children are not exceptional. The particulars of cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large, memory gnawing it like a fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss [...]

The child’s wonder At the old moon Comes back nightly. She points her finger To the far silent yellow thing Shining through the branches Filtering on the leaves a golden sand, Crying with her little tongue, “See the moon!” And in her bed fading to sleep With babblings of the moon on her little mouth. [...]

THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna. A train whirls by, and men and women at tables Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils, Eat steaks running with brown gravy, Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee. The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna, Washes [...]

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled. Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, Singing a low song in the loneliness. And [...]

THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 [...]

On the unbreathing sides of hills they play, a specklike girl and boy, alone, but near a specklike house. The Sun’s suspended eye blinks casually, and then they wade gigantic waves of light and shade. A dancing yellow spot, a pup, attends them. Clouds are piling up; a storm piles up behind the house. The [...]

Two children (small), one Four, one Five, Once saw a bee go in a hive, They’d never seen a bee before! So waited there to see some more. And sure enough along they came A dozen bees (and all the same!) Within the hive they buzzed about; Then, one by one, they all flew out. [...]