An infant is crying in its crib‑‑‑
Not because it has an ulcer,
But because it has no answers.
Its tiny reddened eyes
Have known no happiness,
But that is to be expected.
On a hilltop there crouches
A young boy on a walk.
He looks out there and sees
The houses and factories
And the roads and the river,
And he knows as he looks
That men are out there, too,
Although they are too insignificant
To be seen from such a distance.
Swirling down to the streets
Of some rural community,
A snowflake and its companions
Resignedly face their fates.
As a little girl catches him
On her wet, coarse tongue
Bringing ecstatic demise
To his small enough mind,
He wonders how people
Could so delude themselves
Into believing that they
Could possibly understand him.
As the dead daylight wanes
And the depressing overcast
Spreads itself selfishly out
For the coming night of coldness,
An old woman sighs grayly.
The milky moon appears
But its feeble warmth comforts few.
The long, long darkness is settling in.
The once‑calm atmosphere Is now a scene of turmoil.
Pieces of clouds snatch at each other
And turbulent streams of air
Crash anything unfortunate enough
To be caught up in them
Into soundless oblivion.
The baby has stopped crying,
For the moment at least.
The boy is somewhat secure
In his layered fortress of blankets,
But he cannot sleep.
He senses that death and confusion
Are lurking just outside his window,
And that his noblest attempts
To offer resistance to
Their spindly yet surprisingly strong fingers
Would be mockingly vain.
Nearby his sister is asleep,
But having a very frightening nightmare.
In it she is held captive
By a huge green bat
Who keeps laughing and breathing flames
As he wonders in what manner
He will put her to death.
Downstairs Grandmother is knitting
And softly singing to herself
Some song known only to her.
Her son and his wife
Are listening attentively
To the man on the television
Repeating the recent changes
Reported for tonight's forecast.
As he completes his grim message,
The husband slowly switches off
The already silenced set.
Then the three of them
Simply sit motionless in their seats,
Until the man finally speaks
To his apparently worried wife.
He explains that there is nothing
To become so anxious about
Because of an ordinary weather report,
Of which she is already well aware.
She says she feels the children
Are in very grave danger
And they must be protected somehow,
Although she cannot explain how
She has been informed of this.
Her mother‑in‑law soon comes to her son's rescue,
And she expresses her feeling
That there can be no danger
In a home where the adults
Are as prepared to meet the unknown
As their children certainly are.
In order to avoid any more
Needless antagonism and uneasiness,
The man suggests that
They all go up and check
To see if the children are alright.
The women agree, and as they climb the stairs
The man can't help but feel
A bit curious as to what would have made his wife
Become so upset so easily.
The first room to which they come
Is that of the little girl.
She lies fast asleep.
The old lady mumbles something about
Superstitious young wives.
Next they look in on the baby.
She, too, is sleeping soundly.
Finally they arrive at the boy's door.
The father gently opens it
And enters the room in the dimness.
Everything is in order and he turns to leave.
Just then the boy speaks to him.
Why is it, he asks, that
The grownups allow such monsters
As those outside his window
To ever come near little boys
And frighten them so terribly?
His father replies that
He shouldn't let them bother him
And that he should go to sleep
And he would wake up in the morning
To find everything as it should be.
As the boy floats upward
From the bottomless depths of unconsciousness
To find himself awake,
He remembers his fear
Of the previous night.
He cautiously opens his eyes,
But all the while he is somehow assured
That the monsters are gone.
Indeed, the sun is out
And all the out‑of‑doors
Calls to him to come and play.
He hurriedly dresses himself
And charges down the stairs.
Finding no parental resistance
As it is still very early,
He explodes out the back door
And into the yard already alive
And waiting for him to say the word.
Somewhere in the sky
A gray‑eyed hawk is flying.
He swoops down to the brow
Of a heavily wooded hill.
There he sits on an old log
For hour upon hour,
Patiently awaiting his friend.
The moth flutters lethargically
Towards the leprous fallen tree,
Apparently unaware of his surroundings.
But in his tiny head
There is a spark of thought
Which could split apart a planet,
If it were to be so applied.
Today he will be doing no sundering, however,
And as he finally sights the hawk
He smiles a cryptic smile.
The hawk waves a wing
And jets off into the blue.
The little boy begins
The slow ascent of the hillside
Towards his accustomed resting place.
On attaining the summit,
He sits and dangles his legs
Out over the edge of the abyss.
A moth parades around him
Almost as if it knew it were doing so.
He has always liked moths.
It pauses on his arm,
Lightly making its way
Down his wrist to his thumb.
There it stops and begins
To tickle him with its flimsy wings.
He can't resist talking to it,
Being an imaginative little boy.
He says hello, and the moth replies,
Surprisingly enough,
That he is lonely
And would really appreciate it
If the little boy would be his friend.
After the initial wonder and amusement
Of hearing a moth speak wear off,
The boy asks the moth
If he has ever been afraid.
The moth says yes, many times.
Soon they become good friends,
And as the boy starts to go back down
The moth tells him a small secret.
The monsters are real
Even to people like his father,
Although they make them go away
By pretending not to see them.
The only way to make them
Go away, and stay away,
Is to understand them.
The little boy has trouble enough
Understanding the moth's words
Let alone understanding the monsters,
So he just puts the words away in his head,
Until one day he comes to know
What it is the moth has said.
