by Randall Jarrell

The child saw the bombers skate like stones across the fields 

As he trudged down the ways the summer strewed 

With its reluctant foliage; how many giants 

Rose and peered down and vanished, by the road

The ants had littered with their crumbs and dead.

“That man is white and red like my clown doll,”

He says to his mother, who has gone away.

“I didn’t cry, I didn’t cry.”

In the sky the planes are angry, like the wind.

The people are punishing the people – why?

–

He answers easily, his foolish eyes

Brightening at that long simile, the world;

The angels sway above his story like balloons.

A child makes everything (except his death) a child’s.

Come to the stone and tell me why I died.