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A Child
Kira Howe
28 Aug 2008
For the past twenty-four hours or more I have had in my mind the image of a child playing alone.
She picks up and looks at every pebble and feather that captures her eye. Stuffs them in her pockets, in her shoes. She follows insects on their impossible, eight-inch odysseys. Her fingers grasp at the locust and flee before the mantis' claws. She gazes upwards at the birds and the patterns in the clouds. She somersaults in the grass until she is dizzy.
I do not see a house, although I suppose there must be one close by. If I were to guess at the sounds, there would be only the insects, the birds and the wind.
This person is content. She has no need for anything but the knowledge that she may return home when curiosities become exhausted, which they never will. That leaves only a voice, someone she knows, to call her back.
Memory and imagination become intermixed, until I can no longer tell who the child is.
I only know that, just as she is not lonely - nor am I, watching her.
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