The joy of climbing that far off the ground,
The taste of fruit you have picked yourself;
Most children, still, these real things want to feel,
More than mere images, or bits of light.

It’s we that cloak in artificial ways
Experience that they are born to want:
By hiding in our plastic fortresses
Protecting them from being who they are.

The apple trees are there; the rivers too —
The dirt, the grass, the water, and the sky:
The joy of all that they might learn to do,
In all the simple things we keep them from