The Little boy Who Wouldn't go to Bed

The Little Boy Who Wouldn't Go To Bed

I followed him
upon the stair,
saw his spirit stare
beneath his leadened eyes
for there were cries inside
that would not be expressed
until the meadow day,
the time for him to play
and not to weep as
he would now if distant love
were not sustaining deep
inside.

The meadow was his refuge;
he could be alone,
appear to fly across the crest
and disappear from earthwatch,
hide the tears no longer,
speak the words
that welled within the dark
beside his bed,
were in the crowding of the night,
unable to be said.

It was resounding of the sun,
a badinage that tore at tenderness,
that made of rest
a shrouded interlude,
a quietness that screamed
of flight, of meadowlands
that in their emptiness
could understand.

And so to bed,
and coveting release
with every hour he stored away
as bonds to be redeemed
at that bright meadow's call
to lacrimation unrestrained
by its attendant joy,
the surge unheard and unobserved...
the time unique to its belonging.

He knew--I knew
the meadow gathered up its own,
the speeding night too slow.
He knew within him overflowed
the love and sorrow of a Samuel
the cosmos blessed,
and dressed in an emotion
few will share, or care...
that with the sun an age is born
and in the age another prophet sired,
another mystic son of man.
~