There were almost ripe apples
Showing their red cheeks to the open sky, 
There were laughing girls dancing
For the sake of dancing in the green fields 
And many other delightful things
And these were going on and on
In the imagination, while cutting 
Vegetables for a winter meal, 

But even in childhood play,
There is room for confinement and limits 
That a fearful mother provides
On stormy nights of thunder and lightning 
With timpani in the stormy sky,
So that a mother gathered her brood 
Hiding them and herself inside 
The safety of a roomy closet. 

The way that all that goes on,
Is the wonder and the mystery
Of our existence in this
Brief interlude between birth and death 
And then, nothing is known, nothing at all.