That low brow, primitive man, of late
has developed frontal lobes inflated
by ideas he got into his head – or else what he ate
produced a natural gas which annotated
what human vocal chords try to articulate –
and who wants his scents elucidated?

Small children don’t understand a thing we say
because we take seriously what to them is play.

The child’s world is a kaleidoscope of toys
and they are natural learners of basic things,
knowing how to take a fall with bouncing joys
as if walking is just one step from growing wings
and they are quick to find the exact pitch of noise
that satisfies their needs by the response it brings.

What balance of nurture and freedom, what loving structure,
or what formula would not be just serendipitous conjecture.

God gives us angelic beings and places them in our care,
tricks us hormonally into loving their wrinkled faces,
and those big bright eyes our hearts’ protective membranes tear
while their innocent laughter rips out of us the painful traces
of all our limitations which we unconsciously, but fully, share
from our hearts’ inherited and absolutely hellish places.

Heaven’s child is often introduced to life with this initiation –
inadequate nurture to meet Nature’s challenging expectation.