A Child Asleep by John Pepper Clark

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He who plucked light

From under shade of a tree

Sat so in dust, but in silence,

Passing like a spear clean into

The pith of things. But you,

Graft to an old bombax tree,

Raised on fulness of sap science

Cannot give, breed flies

In the oil of our evening,

Have sat dropsical feeding

On desire: it squashes, like dried

Out ribs of tobacco an old woman

Is turning into snuff you tried

To wreck with stones –

But oh look at what we spies

Have missed! In the sand

Here at our feet already fallen is

Your stool, and how clean

Past our fingers, teasing and

Tugging, you have slumped down

A natal stump, there shed

Distended in the dust – No!

As a primeval shadow

Tumbling head over heels into arms of light.