Come to the Stone. . . .

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.