Bildungsroman

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,They kill us for their sport.

King Lear

The only earth we knewthen was the earth        we would outgrow—the scuff of the screech owlon parchment light,        a yellow bulbabove the porch moths, an hourthere in the indistinct        navy tableclothof night, running our handsthrough it, rinsing our fingers        as with lake waterin a winter without frost—there in the weight of it,        in the air betweenpine needles and the rockssinking, even then, though        imperceptibly,into the tread of sucking mud,we couldn’t think of it,        raised as we had beenonce from the wet husksof our mothers, lifted        as by wind and wound in bed sheetswarm as blood, we couldn’t        think of it—if we had known, we could havehuddled, held ourselves        and held each other,we could have held each breathuntil it clenched like granite        to the riverbedof lung—but there, unknownto us, it was, as tenderly        indefiniteas love, a death embeddedin the bright bead of each firefly        we cuppedout of the darkness with our palmsas soft as tongues, there        as our laughterflapped above us like a swan—it was, it was, it was, it was