Somewhere a child is so young that he looks
at the world for the first time, a real look. He
kneels up at the windows in his draggled white
sleepers in the comfortable moisture of his own
urine. With no words, he looks at the world in its
fullness. He sees the wall, for how weak it is; he
sees the atmosphere in spite of its transparency;
the sky towers; the clouds lead his wide, sober eyes
up the very place of God. The child puts his
finger in his mouth and contemplates: in his small
head is the whirling of planetary systems and the
acceptance that a million million miles lie between
him and that part of himself he may someday call
"God." Seeing a larger tear start, God lets the sober eyes
travel back to the closer clouds, down from infinity
to the garden, and to a little bug walking across
the sill.
Now the child too has the illusion that the
walls are strong, that the world is small, and that
mystery is enclosed in a little bug he can hold in
his own two hands. He has many questions still,
almost too many for his head to hold, but no words.
When he gets words, he will have fewer questions,
and then perhaps for years at a time, he will have no
questions at all.