The Child and the World

Issue 4 | Summer 2020 |

 

 

They gave a child a world
   and he broke it.

He threw it in the air,
   admired the way the spin
   reflected the sunlight,
   casting silver coins
   on the nearby trees,

and he broke it.

He rolled it up the hill,
   bouncing, scattering pebbles
   and feathers of dust,
   all the way to the top
   under stars like scattered pebbles
   among feathery, scattered clouds.

He rolled it down the hill,
   trailing pebbles and plumes
   of dust that settled like wreckage
   of some long-destroyed mountain

and he broke it.

The child wept
   and cursed the world for breaking,

stamped his feet and pleaded
   with the broken bits of world
   to come together and spin again
   and he would never ever break it again

and the world stayed broken,
   pebbles and stars and dust
   and a child, seeding with tears
   the rubble-cluttered seas,
   tore at the claws of his memories,
   but they would not let him go.