Well, I guess now the son should read
about himself a little bit.
This is "Childhood 1."
"These were among my first thoughts on Earth
that I had been put here as some kind of reward,
given a gift for being what I was.
And I loved my bike as an emissary
from that power to give me gifts.
I talked to my bike praising it for moving
at the command of my pedaling and steering
in the right direction at my touch.
The sidewalk lying flat and still
in expectation of the bike cooperated
with the powers that be and no one stood in its path
to topple me over.
The wind brushing against my face
was like the hand of approval.
Where then was the change hiding, the hidden change?
I never thought the bike betrayed me
nor the sidewalk nor the wind.
But now I see them simply as means, and the betrayer is me.
I cannot call the bike an emissary to tool,
the sidewalk as a path, the wind as a current of air.
We are not talking to each other or communicating
that I'm aware of.
But what does it matter?
I tell myself as long as I am free to use them
for my delight.
But I am alone in my pleasures.
I am not the child of anyone.
For as I see myself growing the bike shrinks in size
and the sidewalk fills with cracks and bumps.
The wind on my face in cold weather chills me.
And when I eat, I know it is because of appetite.
I have become something else to myself
other than with the bike, the sidewalk, and the wind.
Because the bike never is hungry,
the sidewalk, and the wind because the bike
never is hungry nor does the sidewalk ever
have to go to bed.
And sometimes the wind stops blowing
and does not exist for me which would have frightened me
about myself earlier.
While the wind never is frightened,
I never hear it speak about itself
as I am beginning to speak about myself.
And I know there is something about me very different.
And sometimes I am panicky about it.
But more often, I am glad because I
have something else to turn to and pleasure,
and that is myself which always is with me.
But I am alone because a tree looks lonely to me now
standing by itself, whereas earlier I had thought
it beautiful telling me what I felt about myself too,
that I was, that we both were.
Now, it looks lonely, but I know that again is my thinking,
and thinking is my pleasure and my burden too.
I am all alone.
And so I have turned to another like myself
and find him happy to turn to me too.
And now, I am growing up still more
as we begin to differ on the games we should be playing
or the places to visit on our bikes
or the time to go home to dinner.
I become lonely again and defensive.
Myself, needing to be defended as the only absolute friend
and sharer in myself.
But I know that each of us feels the same as we
exchange smiles often and talk together from time
to time with gentleness, and kidding and wait
for the voices of our parents to call us separately to dinner."