Halos

In the shallow, ruddy light of dawn
My son and I walked on the dew-wet grass
His six year old eyes viewing the world anew,
Seeing what I look at, but do not see.

While the sun warmed our backs
And our shadows advanced before us
He fell into a momentary thoughtful silence,
Then pointed ahead, exclaiming his discovery.

"Look, my shadow has a halo!"
I looked up and saw my own shadow's halo,
But that his shadow walked bareheaded
In the newborn light of the morning.

He saw his own shadow, and I saw mine
But the sight of his halo was denied to me
And mine was invisible to him.
"Why don't you have one?" he asked.

The answer came quickly to my engineer's mind.
Dew drops on the grass, like tiny glass beads
In reflective paint throw light backwards
Along the path it had just traveled

So that light grazing his head
Is reflected straight back to his eyes
Bright as the fire of discovery
Burning in his fresh-made mind.

It bounced back to his eyes, not mine,
So I couldn't see his shadow's halo,
And likewise my halo was invisible to him,
On the not-light outlines in the grass before us.

The technical answer was clear,
But it was my answer, not his.
"Why don't I have one?" I repeated
As I tousled his six year old hair.

"It's because you're special."

4 March, 2000

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