Poems About a Mother's Love for Her Child

Children don't walk anywhere. They haven't learned the adult art of getting from one place to another without involving the whole body. My daughter runs to the mailbox like the mailbox might leave. She runs to the swings as if the swings have been waiting for her— specifically her— and who's to say they haven't. She asks me why the sky is blue and I give her the science, and she listens politely and then says: I think it's because blue is the happiest color. And honestly her answer is the one I want to live in. She falls seven times a day and each time the ground surprises her, as if gravity were a new idea she hasn't agreed to yet. I watch her from the porch— this small, determined thing who believes that puddles are for jumping, that worms are interesting, that I am the strongest person alive— and I let her believe all of it. Every word. For as long as the world lets me.

A child asks: why is the sky blue? And you start to answer and realize you don't actually know. You thought you knew. You've known since you were seven. But now a four-year-old is staring at you with the patience of a professor waiting for a student who is clearly not prepared. Children teach you that you know nothing. This is their greatest gift. They teach you that a stick is a sword, a wand, a fishing pole, a microphone, and a horse— all in the same afternoon. Imagination is not something children have. It's something adults lost. They teach you that bedtime is a negotiation, not a rule. That one more story is never one more story. That the real reason they want the water and the bathroom and the other blanket is that being alone in the dark is a serious thing and they haven't learned yet to pretend it isn't. They teach you speed. Not fast— the other kind. The speed at which a person can go from laughing to crying to laughing again without any of it being fake. The honesty of children is not charming. It's terrifying. Because they say what we've all agreed not to say and the room goes quiet and you realize the child is right. They are always right. Not about facts. About things that are more important than facts. Like how the dog deserves a longer walk. Like how the moon is following us. Like how if you love someone you should probably tell them right now because right now is all a child has ever understood.

There is an age— somewhere between three and five— when a child discovers the most powerful word in any language: why? Why is the sky blue? Why do dogs bark? Why do we have to sleep? Why do people die? Why is that man sad? Why can't I fly? Why is water wet? Each question is a door opened by someone who doesn't yet know that most adults stopped opening doors years ago. I watched my daughter in the grocery store ask the cashier why she had a sticker on her name tag. The cashier paused. Looked at the sticker. A small rainbow. And said: because it reminds me to smile. My daughter nodded as if this were the most reasonable thing she'd heard all day. Because it was. Children at this age are not asking to be taught. They are asking to be taken seriously. And the difference between the two is the difference between a teacher and a companion. I don't have the answers. Most of the time I Google them while pretending to already know. But the asking— the beautiful, relentless, exhausting, magnificent asking— is the thing I never want them to outgrow. Because the day a child stops asking why is the day they start accepting things the way they are. And the way things are has never been good enough.