Watch us take flight,

It’s a miraculous sight.

Adult eyes drip tears

But all we shed are our fears

As we jump--with certain grace

Towards the future life we face.

Watch us plunge into the unknown

As you wait ready for curiosity to carve our tombstone.

Beneath our ever-changing surface we’re not as hopeless as we seem,

Subconsciously you wish you had our eyes’ lively gleam.

Watch us make our own path with each step that we take

You think we’re foolish dreaming and you hope that soon we’ll wake.

But what you do not remember, nor understand

Is that youth is but a fruitful and uncharted land.

Each adventure before us tastes savory and bittersweet

And the memory we’ll keep ‘til old age we do greet.

So don’t steal us away from childhood--that is the job of fate--

Because someday when we grow up, what we take away is great.