To a Child in Heaven
You perished, in a toyland, of surprise;
and only I am here to bury you
in dessicated tulip tips and eyes
of broken diadie-dolls. Poor pink, poor blue!
Will you be grown when I’m in Heaven too?
Will length of death have turned you Classical
like old Bisque faces, keen and sainted view,
pearl on your breast, pearl-pointed linen shawl?
No, you’ll still have your flowers with no stem,
and harp, clear stringed, the blur of La Boheme.
You’ll heap upon that Mansion’s mantlepiece
impossible plush animal creations,
and pout the pillared City’s aberrations.
You rest a Classic, but of Wedgewood’s Greece.
Copyright Credit: Richard Emil Braun, “To a Child in Heaven” from Children Passing. Copyright © 1962 by Richard Emil Braun. Used by permission of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
Source: Children Passing (University of Texas Press, 1962)