puredanger.com Blog

Poem: Sestina for a Child July 30, 2006

I slowly rise in a dream
As if to whisper
Of true wisdom
But alas I cannot; I am not free
I sink to sit again by the fire
Innocent as a newborn child-

A child
Who imagines a different world in his private hopes and dreams
A world free of plague, faminine, flood, and fire
A place where a whisper
Of truth or beauty can still be free
And not merely a scholar’s wisdom.

For lack of “wisdom”
Makes a child
Free to hope and free
To dream.
I wish I knew the child’s whispers
As it sits playing by the fire

Would they think of the fire
In a simple wisdom
Or whisper,
Knowing, of a child’s
Playtime dreams
Never bounded, always free.

Later in life, we aren’t so free-
We sit by the fire
Thinking we’ve learned from shattered dreams
Some untold words of wisdom
To share with the child,
To whisper

Late at night; to whisper
As they cuddle close, not ever wanting to be free.
But when the thoughts of a child
Are virgin pure like fire,
They’re the ones who hold the wisdom,
Forming their hopes and creating their dreams.

So I listen to the whispers by the fire
From a child who’s free to share his wisdom:
A child who can dream . . .