Perfect Conduct

Last night at supper, my 22 month-old-daughter was in her high chair before a plate of pondered food: ketchuped greenbeans, hashbrowns, and sausage. She held her arms to her sides in maestro fashion, perhaps conducting The Moldau very slowly, in measured motion. Then came a misquoted memory of Dickinson: "to spread wide my narrow hands to gather paradise."

The correct reading (from #657):

For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

It is a gift to be in the presence of innocence and to have poetry with which to perceive it.