Someone once said, it's been with us
since the beginning, incorruptible and blameless
as the electricity that rides the sky
and pushes the children away from the swing,
to fear then unhappiness, as they stare out
of windows like the rain will always be
their greatest bully. Nothing we do
can console them, like the small and nearby
were already the wide and friendly world,
as if outside should be swings and seesaws
and permanent sunshine. As if their whole lives
would rest on the same axis: our presence
and their resistance. Meanwhile,
we do what we can. We count the spaces
between lightning and thunder, the intervals
of rain and sun, time. So that our children,
alive with their bursting blue souls,
could once again leave us inside,
staring out of windows and growing even older.
