Time is a Toy: The Selected Poems of Michael Benedikt

Of an Only Child’s World

206 of an only child’s world 1. It’s hard for anyone who hasn’t grown up as an only child to imagine just exactly what that’s like, I guess, However (& I think I can speak with a certain authority about this subject, having grown up, once, as an only child) I believe that, just as with most other things in this world (if not, in fact, just as with just about everything else on earth) In understanding this particular subject, too, A little stretch of the imagination can help. 2. I’ll bet that you, for example—right off the bat & even just for openers—can imagine quite easily That “Only,” can sometimes mean kind of “Lonely” —I mean, after all, for any only child, right from the start, There are no elder sisters, & no elder brothers, nearby, much less in the very same room For a kid to talk to when it gets dark, or cry out in the night to; Therefore, a child who is an only child, will often fall asleep at night Listening to TV, or to the radio. 3. Nor is there any big sister, or big brother to turn to, daytimes, to give the only child the benefit of his or her experience, By offering the usual advice, on things like “How To Get Along In Life;” On the other hand, there can be a certain element of excitement, can there not?—& even a certain “Pioneering Sense of Exploration” (as we might term it, to be brief) In “Finding Out Things For Oneself.” 207 4. Of course, in such a situation, it’s also true, there’s no little sister, or little brother either To watch over, look out for, share various favorite toys with, & perhaps, sooner or later, to become jealous of; —Yes, I can say from experience; & even with a certain authority, That it’s inconceivable, for an only child, to experience anything at all Like the usual feelings of “Sibling Rivalry.” 5. In any event, a kid can get to be kind of independent, Growing up that way, relatively-speaking on his or her own; & all by his or her own lonesome; He or she learns to look “Within,” in the main, for solutions to many of the usual, youthful “Growing Pains,” —First during childhood, & then in later years; Revolving his or her own thoughts, & racking his or her own brains again & again, about various things that, to be sure, concern other people, too. —Such as what, in the world, might be best for one. 6. —Even the parents one might have depended on a whole lot more (&, yes, maybe even loved a whole lot better), had not one, from early on, started the habit of “Going It Alone,” Being seen—whether those two were sleeping invisibly together, during the long dark hours of the night, in the room they inevitably gravitated to, which was their private space, Or whether they were hard at work, during long hours of the daylight, & thus also absent & in some other place— As presences in a world of their own, too; & always merely “Out There Somewhere,” somewhat like mysteries; 208 —& What with all the preoccupations of their own, adult, lives As distant as stars or galaxies. 7. —The fact that in their own younger years, they were once accompanied, Being testified to, by seemingly endless hosts Of laughing-&-joking-together aunts & uncles, etc., passing through the halls many nights—& passing by one’s bedroom door, & into radiant, multicolored party-lights; & Coming & going, during their frequent, mysterious visitations, Like meteors or like comets. 8. So, just possibly, it takes a certain peculiar kind of courage for a kid to go on growing up that way—as isolated, & separated, & aware of the vastness & indifference of the darkness that surrounds him or her As our astronomers are, scanning the universe, from all around the world, with their optical & radio telescopes; All hoping—amid the obscure, unanswered silences that they know, too— To hear one signal or find just one sign That our earth is not the only inhabited planet in the universe. ...