Dazzling Children Poem by Daniel Brick

Over the soft warm islands
of the South Pacific,
the sun traced its daily journey
until MAUI shook his fat finger
at the course of day
and stalled it so that
his mother had time to cook
his food properly and serve it.

Abraham mixed a child's
daydream with a thought too big
for a youngster's head and came up
with the notion of One God...
He was puzzled then
when he watched the half-brothers
give each other full body hugs and kisses.
Ishmael held Isaac's face between his hands,
saying, 'Dear brother, may your stars
multiply in the heavens a thousand fold.'
And Isaac bowed deeply to Ishmael.
Both were smiling into a gray twilight.

Then Jesus confounded
wise men in the Temple.
They looked around nervously
avoiding each other's eyes,
since they all felt stuck
in the subtle webs
of a child's brain
with a divine mind inside.

Heracles sat up right in his cart,
laughing and delighted that he could
squeeze the life out of Hera's snakes,
their insides bulging out of their mouths,
while Iphicles played the sobbing wreck.

Their second-born fixed the hammock's shadow
so it fell precisely on his face
as he lay in a repose so still
his parents could hardly believe,
'This too is our child.'