When I was small I thought by now
I’d know most everything somehow.
I thought that older meant less doubt,
More answers in and fewer out.
I thought I’d wake one day and feel
Solid and finished, hard and real,
Like all the grown-ups in the room
Who never seemed to drift or bloom
Into ten different kinds of thought
From things they wished and things they ought.
Instead I know some larger words
And hear some sadder kinds of birds.
I keep more to myself these days.
I look at people’s hidden ways.
I think too much.
I talk less fast.
I wish some hours would hurry past.
If this is growing, then I guess
It’s partly more and partly less.