People say children are alike
It confounds me
How much they change with time.
When we were young
We didn’t ask
Why people threw stones
Into the river
Before they crossed in the evening;
Why we were warned
Never to point a finger
At the sky.
We never asked why elders panicked
When a tree-dassie
Loitered into the yard
Or a hen crowed.
We didn’t ask
Why hunters turned home
If a snake or leguaan
Crossed their path;
Why peasants refrained from ploughing
Or digging holes
Till a dead person was buried.

Now that I’m a parent
Children ask
Why I bury the carcass
Of an animal struck by lightening.
They ask why I worry
When a swarm of bees
Make a hive at my door;
Why I’m troubled
If an owl
Hoots from the roof of my house.
Soon they will tell me
Why women confront the mother
If the infant refuses her breast
But accepts that of a stranger.

Is it because they are asking
That this world is changing?
Or is the world changing
Because they are asking?