Wednesday, December 30, 2009
"Looking Glass Secret" by Richard Fein
Most creatures never learn the looking glass secret.
A songbird does a duet for hours and always thinks itself in good company,
without an inkling it’s singing solo.
But comes the day when baby finds no other baby behind the mirror.
Before, if he laughed that other baby laughed, and if he cried. . ..
So all babies laughed and all babies cried and he was all babies.
But came the day he peeked behind the mirror and found no other baby.
He danced and so did the mirrored baby but never out of step with him.
He spread finger and thumb across the mirror’s edge
and suddenly discovered there’s no room within for a baby playmate.
He cried and babbled words like mama and dada.
And many, many words later the child again looked deep into the mirror.
But by then he could mouth that unsettling word —
ALONE.
A songbird does a duet for hours and always thinks itself in good company,
without an inkling it’s singing solo.
But comes the day when baby finds no other baby behind the mirror.
Before, if he laughed that other baby laughed, and if he cried. . ..
So all babies laughed and all babies cried and he was all babies.
But came the day he peeked behind the mirror and found no other baby.
He danced and so did the mirrored baby but never out of step with him.
He spread finger and thumb across the mirror’s edge
and suddenly discovered there’s no room within for a baby playmate.
He cried and babbled words like mama and dada.
And many, many words later the child again looked deep into the mirror.
But by then he could mouth that unsettling word —
ALONE.
// posted by H. Brown @ 7:51 PM 