one more poem.

For A Five-Year-Old



by Fleur Adcock



A snail is climbing up the the window-sill

into your room, after a night of rain.

You call me in to see, and I explain

that it would be unkind to leave it there:

it might crawl to the floor; we must take care

that no one squashes it. You understand,

and carry it outside, with careful hand,

to eat a daffodil.





I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:

your gentleness is moulded still by words

from me, who trapped mice and shot wild birds,

from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed

your closest relatives, and who purveyed

the harshest kind of truth to many another.

But that is how things are: I am your mother,

and we are kind to snails.