I recall as a child
I explained everything to everyone.
The world went through me
like a wind.
I was a zither with strings.
I held planets in my hands
and called them stones.
I built roads of sand
and found countries at their ends.
No one told me I could not do things.
I had forgotten how to fly
and asked birds to show me again.
I climbed the branches of trees,
and told everyone,
how high I’d gone.
Touched the ceiling
where the sky looked down,
and then,
returned to land,
where I dug holes in the ground,
to see how deep the earth could fall.
So deep I was afraid
and filled it in,
and told stories
about the centipedes and worms,
until I had grown twice as tall.
Then told others all the things I’d read,
until someone yelled,
don’t you have something of your own
to tell?
Or must you always tell
what everyone else has done?
Then,
ashamed,
I no longer said what the earth
was saying,
or how many places I had gone,
until one day
when no one listened,
I began to talk to myself alone,
and then to others who told me
secrets of what they’d learned,
the only rule being
I must be as them,
no older than a child.