INFANT CLICHES
Young neighbours bring us their new-born child to see. She is perfection. What is one to think? Any idea that one has is a cliche that thousands have thought before. None the less one thinks it. The plump fingers, each with a miniature nail. The calm acceptance of the whole world....... These things have to be re-thought every time.

At the back of one's mind the old words recite themselves
Come away, O human child
To the water and the wild,
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

One pushes them away.