Through Childhood's Eyes

You are complicated,

   more than you seem, and less

 but mostly just different-complicated.

   You have learned a lot of language

in your few years of life, words

   without all their feathers and scales.

Part of the challenge to being understood

   by taller, louder others is a basic 

but very important difference:

   you live exclusively in the buzzing

present and we (the taller and louder)

   follow our minds past this moment,

living most of our time preparing 

    for what the future will bring.

Which means we tend to neglect

   the smaller wonders which

enthrall and entrance your lovely eyes.

   We misunderstand your reactions

because we see them through our own

   grownup prisms and motivations

instead of slowing down and seeing

   what you saw or felt in that moment. 

Maybe it isn't a two-year-old's tantrum,

   maybe it is frustration with your limited

grasp of language and social moreas. 


   



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