Several children are walking in their swimming suits
toward the red barn. A naked fat man sits on the roof.
The sun is in patches and without sufficient legs.
Nothing is rooted down, not these tall flowers,
not this piece of paper in the wind.
These children appear to touch the earth,
but it is difficult to know for sure.
It is important to know that the youngest,
the baby, was lost this morning.
They played with it in the cornfield.
Then they ran away, and now
no one knows where it is.
When it is found, it will be burnt.
Or maybe it will not be there at all.
The children have run away from home.
They can’t cry anymore. They walk up and down
the hills. They do not touch or speak.
They are not trying to make this difficult.
It just is.
One child begins to cry again,
and soon they are all crying. Another
hits its head repeatedly with the heel of a hand.
Perhaps it thinks that the baby
is lodged inside, and could exit the ear.
When dusk comes, a strange man takes
them gently into the barn.
They may or may not be crying now.
They are tired.
He hold them carefully to the ground,
where goodness surely lives, or has lived.
He beds them down
in a nest made of his hair.
They sleep as the plants have slept
for thousands and thousands of years.