Why Children Sing

O you, who have never been so young
let me tell you how it is
where a bad day never comes.

Where a bad day never comes
the long-legged bird wades,
cherishing his curved, soft neck
above the flooded lake.
Under him nothing evil swirls

Nothing evil swirls about his legs
and the sickle moon, she rises nearly
and the sun she always rises;
Dry husks fall away from buds, like now
the pale flesh of the leaf unfolds.

And the pale flesh of the leaf unfolds
a man and a woman who float
on the odor of pine past twilight,
darkness blossoming always
as I heard it one morning, all night
in the round hum of my mother’s arms
O anyone, who has never been so young.