W. S. MERWIN
The Youth of Animals
They start by learning to listen
for the approach of the first time
ages before their eyes open
upon the night that holds them
younger than the night they had known
which was always whole and unseen
and then they see the first light come
to find them and when it knows them
they call out for it is the one
that they knew before they began
then what happens is the first time
and they see it all around them
as they know the song of hunger
repeating the notes of its climb
out of them and hear the answer
corning back to its only name
the way one after the other
the days come back to the same
faces where they have lived before
and find them again the first time
there was never a time before
but each day the eyes are wider
and the horizon tempts them more
whenever they see it again
one morning they wander farther
out toward it than ever before
not sure yet what they have come for
and then they come to the first time
and before they know it are gone
that one time and the time after
