When I Was A Little Child Poem by Thabani Khumalo

When I was a little child,
it was made sure - by my royal father -
that my life was only present
in the most intriguing moments of entertainment.

I loved my childhood and I enjoyed it to the fullest -
I paid fifty cents and took to war behind the Contra screen -
I had everything a boy would grievously worry about if bereft.

I brought the sweet feeling with me into adulthood
and nothing feels as though it's missing or lost,
so that when the bitter people budge in with their temporary pleasures,
their adulterous ways and promiscuous sins,
I know how to plunder the best of the squander in wonderful measure -
I come to mourn like a yelp in the arms of a woman bereaved,
and I steal the tears of the mourner from the weeping pleasure:
the tranquil space thereof reaches the faraway paradise.