The Disappointments of Childhood

Perhaps a bird was singing and for it I felt a tiny affection, the same size as a bird. -Jorge Luis Borges

...
And now remember how, as a child,
someone is telling you how they love you.
How much does Daddy love you? they
ask, and you, childlike, spread
your arms as wide as a child can.

Little do you know it then, but
the rest of your life will be spent
measuring the distance between "that much"
and what love, in fact, is capable of--
...

p.22 az- Days We Would Rather Know: Poems -- by Michael Blumenthal