A father is born once more with his child
And lives once more in the Eden: its eyes.
I did not want that twinkle leave my child’s eyes,
If not ever, then at least as long as she remained a child.
When does it end nowadays, childhood?
Once it used to be eleven, no, ten. Or was it nine?
Back then, in my time, innocence was stretched beyond ten.
Nowadays, in her times, it ends at seven, or six, maybe.
She knows, for instance, when to look away from the screen.
She also knows the laws of attraction.
She knows that girls and boys are…, um, different.
They talk, those children her age, among themselves.
They know much more than I think they do.
I can now feel how He must have felt,
When He had seen that innocence lost
In the eyes of the first man,
His pride, his child.
