What writers write

The only thing I've ever read by Kurt Vonnegut is his short story Harrison Bergeron. It's a dystopian short story about a future America in which everyone is completely equal. The equality is enforced by the Handicapper General, who gives people masks, hangs weights around their necks, shaves their eyebrows, and makes them wear "radios" which provide a constant stream of noise to interrupt their thoughts. Everyone is made equal by stifling the things that make them beautiful, intelligent, and unique.

I've heard of his novels, like A Man Without a Country and Slaughterhouse Five, but Harrison Bergeron is the only thing I've ever read by Vonnegut. So when I think of this Vonnegut, I think of tragedy and dystopias and a bleak future.

You can imagine, then, that when I read this poem which Vonnegut wrote in 1961, I was more than a little surprised.

Two little good girls
Watchful and wise –
Clever little hands
And big kind eyes –
Look for signs that the world is good,
Comport themselves as good folk should.
They wonder at a father
Who is sad and funny strong,
And they wonder at a mother
Like a childhood song.
And what, and what
Do the two think of?
Of the sun
And the moon
And the earth
And love.

It's such a charming poem, good and sweet and hopeful. Nothing at all like Harrison Bergeron. Something I would have expected maybe from Shel Silverstein, but not Vonnegut. It's just so cute and nice, and reading it kind of renews your childhood wonder. It makes you look at the world through an honest, youthful lens, if only for a moment.

- Viscountess, 2012-13