When I was a child Who thought like a child I sought for secrets, hidden, that humans (being for all their keenness cunning like snakes wise as apes and sentient in their name) could not or would or should not ever know. I don’t mean heart’s hurt or heavy loss: These come to all, human and other hard to bear, harder to deny, A birthright of the soul. But with those old and mystic questions— Calling who still answers my questing— So easy in asking, so nutlike tough to try And from them, for them, head wringing With angels, try to pin down Like clouds between the moon and watered mirror Some final and fantastic sense or meaning. I mean, like, how and what and why. When I was young, I dared to try. How many names for deity? How many endless rivers run? (Is it ten thousand? Or one?) How long is a coastline, and if the tide changes So much as a sand-grain, how long is it then? And what is this thinking? and what is a star As seen from the light that bornless plunges forth into darkness, and in pupil falls? What is it that is, and was, and yet will be? And that last question, beloved of children As they first learn to string All being by causes like infinite beads And is answered Because When one is a child The answers come.