Wednesday, June 29, 2005

A Sparkle In My Day...

I heard, and then saw, children. There were about twenty of them, with three adults, all tromping past the art gallery after the fashion of a victory parade with whoops and giggles aplenty. Faces brightened with more joy than would seem proper to most folks. One little girl had the skipping, leaning, running walk of a colt or a calf that is too busy looking about it to adopt a more dignified gait. One boy paused in front of the window and looked at a large pointillist painting of a wood with the kind of wonder usually reserved for Christmas morning; he is one of the very few in this world aside from the artist who will feel that kind of joy, and that kind of awe and exhiliration while standing before that painting. Asian, Mexican, black and white - here one moment and trundled into a bus the next - they are all separately alight and, yet, singularly alike. I only had the time to actually see two of the children, but they were all marvelously complete and are - each and every - what we have all at least once referred to as "retarded." Funny, they seem to share all of the best portions in life with us and fewer of the poor.