All children sound the same.

Walking today, I came

Near small boys counting loud

The words of a game.

A voice there seemed my son,

Again and again the one

I would know in any crowd.

But I knew none.

I thought, if he were dead

How always in my head

Would sound in any street

Something he said,

Until I could not bear

To walk out anywhere,

For fear that I might meet

His voice in air.

The calendar of light

Gives walls again their white

At the same hour of year

That they stood bright

A year of sun ago.

The night and noontide flow

From once to now and here,

On a deep-bent bow.

I thought then how the hand

Quickens to understand

The shape of solid things

In shape as planned.

I thought then how the mind

Goes out to its own kind

In slowly opening rings,

To seek, to find.

In my own history caught,

I am what I have taught,

But, turned, turned in more,

My need is naught.

The blue globe on its pin

Whirls all the voices in

To color and light, the core

Where sounds begin,

And whirling spins it out

Wider and wide about,

A wave - of many, one -

An echoing shout

From children in a game,

To tell me that the name

Of One was always one,

And sounds the same.