Little Children
What did you bring me? she wanted to know. Another song?
Yes, he had brought her another song. It was on a piece of paper that he had in his pocket, still warm. The song was a poem written to a melody which for the moment lived only inside his head.
She told him she wanted to read it, to hear it, to know everything about it. Was it about them?
It was. It could not help being so. And yet it was about many other things as well, such as little children, and the wind, and stars, and moon. There were even footprints in the song � perfect, silent footprints in newly fallen snow. He told her he had no idea how they had come to be there, that he had been surprised to find them, and that he could only wonder where they led. The world is a funny place, he said, with many doors. And we are going to open them, one by one.
There were footsteps on the floor above. She held her breath. There were none upon the stairs. It�s my mother, she said. I hope nothing happens to her. I hope she doesn�t fall.
Your father is with her. Watching.
Yes. Poor man. He isn�t old, but he has become old.
We are all old, he thought. From the beginning. From the day we are born. It was something he had known for a long time. This, too, was in his song.
The footsteps stopped. But now there was sadness, and the sadness, too, was old. It found them in the dark, reached out, touched them with questioning fingers.
He felt inside his pocket, took out his song. It gave them answers neither understood. But they were beautiful. Beautiful, and good.
February 10, 2006
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