People around him declared
He was too mature for his age
Worldly wise betraying his age
He walked around with this invisible badge
His yoke, his blind, his filter
Keeping a disapproving distance from
Kids screaming and screeching
In boyish delight at instant contests
Climbing a tree or breaking a window
And then spent a lifetime
Searching for the lost child
Silly and stupid, funny and frivolous,
Light of body, at ease with movement
Unafraid to fall, unmindful of looks
Crying over what is, craving for what isn’t
Tender love, the shelter of embrace
The hurtfulness of ignorance, the cruelty in innocence
The licence to dream, the resort to drama
Without the disapproval of an ancient self.

Looking at a little one now, when he hears:
'Such a darling. No problems here’,
He says, ‘Run, my dear’,
There is much to fear
You are born of them,
Not to be their poodle
Or to make them proud—
As life’s expression and will—
Be whoever you are meant to be
Not just what they want you to be
You are a kid, cracks, creases, and edges, all—
For now, you can do little but kick and bawl
And hope folks mature and bear it all.


Image: New Years Resolutions, Calvin & Hobbes, The Ukiah California Daily Journal, December 31, 1995