<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">For the Children</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">They were unutterably lovely, the aliens,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">when finally we knew them, when at last we understood</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">they had lived and moved among us from the beginning</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">in bodies the image of ours, through smoother, eyes wider,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">as if the world were a little darker for them, or more wonderous,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and we loved them as wildly and deeply and helplessly</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">as our first loves, our dreams, our lost ones, all at once,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">though we knew they were wilder and deeper than we were, and freer,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and loving them only deepened our loneliness.</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">When they gathered on evening corners, faintly luminous,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and their murmurring rose in urgency, calling on stars,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">we feared they would leave us for worlds far, far beyond us,</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">though we dared not ask, in their language so eerily ours,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class=""><i class="">Will you carry us with you?—</i>lest they look away, bored</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">with<i class=""> </i>our dullness, our burdensome love, our ignorant dying.</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">What could we, after all, with our dim minds, our narrowed snesoria,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">know of the lightning of their thoughts, the storm of their joys?—</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">or their sorrows, for sorrow was theirs, they were lords of sorrow.</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">Why in the world these creatures, immortal and perfect,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">should be so gloomy and aimless was beyond us,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">yet they grew so slowly into the unprecedented lives</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">we had thought they would seize instantly as their right</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that it seemed the long long future brooding over them</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">was so heavy they could hardly bear it forward one little step.</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">And at last they dismissed the fantastic travels, faster then light,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that had landed them only here, and their magic technologies</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that had taught them, it seemed, what anyone could have told them,</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and they ceased to gather on corners, dreaming of rescuers,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and glanced, if at all, only sidelong at the stars.</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">Maybe some earthly pathogen had worn them,</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">or the weakness of our yellow sun had left tem so wan</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that even their radiant children could not tell them from us</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">when they sat with us, sipping at coffee, a little more patiently now,</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">enduring our sadness, our sad adoration, even our sad relief </div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that life was a little less possible than once we had hoped,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">and gratefully meeting our eyes, since who else in the universe knew</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">that they were as luminous and unutterably lovely</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">as our first loves, our dreams, our lost ones all at once,</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class="">so impossible they were beautiful, so beautiful they were true?</div><p class="ydpcd96df66MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"> </p><div style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- James Richardson</span></div></div></body></html>