For a Five-Year Old

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

- Fleur Adcock

Oh, how I long for the five-year old sensibilities, the young mind that still accepts what comes out of a mother's mouth and is not yet ruined by noticing the actions that may contradict words. We have one nine years past five who has taken it into her own hands to be extremely cruel to snails, among other things. Mom and Dad's words no longer hold any sway. We just pray.