The baby in the tree

The baby in the tree

is screaming.

High above the pathway

near the black tips

of the sycamore branches

he is gaping,

white membraned luminous. 

How did he get there? 

He blew there in the wind;

it took him

like a flag from his cot

till he was stretched

across the boughs

like the wings of a bat. 

And who sees him? 

I do;

all his hopeless writhing,

too high for the passerby.

And his screams:

too high,

too high for the passerby.