Your arms flung wide, your face with wonder shone,
Bright wings on every part of you. “They went
Right to her!” the awed teacher said, as soon
As she’d unzipped the caterpillar tent.
Two years they did it, in butterfly houses
Until, when you were six, they came no more.
I ached to watch you stretch your fingers out as
You longed for them to light there as before.
Some things we each must live ourselves, but tell
The story as some single grand event.
“No more will earth yield up its increase!” fell
The doom, as forth from Paradise we went.
Time was, you could. Now, you no longer can.
We grow. It hurts. This is the Fall of Man.