Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

When you are new born
you live to be touched,
to swaddle and sleep
in warm cotton blankets,
to suckle breast milk
from puckered nipples;
sidewalks lead to distant
continents, streets
are gold pavers of childhood
eternity and parental dreams

You are carried from rooms,
fed from spoons, held
by soft hands; every night
the same moon dog shines

After the first words,
thumbs replace breasts;
when you cry people listen,
no one this tiny should ever
be alone for too long

It is only later, after people leave,
when love is for the unlucky; sadness
has the same eyes as your father,
your voice goes unheard, you sit
and ponder till wet grass grows
through you, tracking the veins
of your heart.

(*from a poem by A.H. Auden)