Youth

L'Absinthe by Edgar Degas, 1876

I am a child in a vacuum:
Nothing to keep me in roots,
Head in the clouds,
Eyes to the sun -

But the sun blinds me
and the clouds are nowhere
and the brightness consumes
every dust of myself.

And I reflect the sunlight
to everything I see
What I know, they know
and what they say, I hear.

I am a child in a vacuum
Alone but free
and the void reminds me
that I exist.