Now I Know

When I was taken outside for the very first time, I saw the sun and it burned holes into my eyes, and the pain filled them with tears.  But now I can see the grass in the ground, and how the green springs from the brown, but only slowly.  Now I know that the roads are smooth and wet when they start, but as they grow old they harden, and crack when the earth shakes.  Now I know that the bats swoop in the dark to catch bugs in their mouths, which they smelled with their ears.  I know that things like honey and webs can be made, but only after hours of hard work—and that things like cardboard and metal are often used in place of wood and stone.  I know now that pigeons gather where the people gather, and that giant squids stay where no one will go.  I know there are indeed flies made of fire, and of butter, and horses and houses and deer.  I know that hummingbirds really don't know how to hum, and that beetles secretly have wings.  I know that when the sky is bright and blue, millions of bright lights are hidden from view, and they only appear after darkness has fallen.  And I know that as things grow old, they begin to die—even the stars—and that the only thing capable of growing young again, though it often doesn't, is the human heart.