CHILDSONG

Childsong (Lyrical Iowa, 1993; Poet’s Review, 1996)

When I was a child,
I was the kind the other kids
shunned and taunted,
so I learned to talk to the wise old elms,
and I listened to the butterflies.
I sat in a corner with stacks of books
and traveled to far away lands,
making friends with wizards and heroes
and magnificent black stallions.
I followed the ants through their trails in the grass.
I played among the fireflies.
I gazed into the midnight sky
and heard the songs of stars
and I wondered,
why?
And now sometimes, I wonder what I must do
to become the kind of grown-up
that child was meant to be.
I long to hear again the singing of the stars.