Scene: Harriet�s bathroom. AJ is sitting on the toilet with a book in his hand, as is his custom.

AJ: Hey, Mommy!
Harriet: Hey, AJ!
AJ: Can I read you a poem?
Harriet: Sure. I�d love it.
AJ:

�To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.�

�Tyger, tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry�

* * * * *

On Wednesday, apparently, AJ�s preschool teacher escorted him around the school to read a Halloween story to each class. AJ is not always forthcoming with information about school, or, more precisely, he tends to focus on things that are not the things I would deem at the high end of the importance hierarchy. We get �T. had a Batman shirt on today! I told him I had a Batman shirt too and then we laughed and fell down� and not �I fell down on the playground and I was bleeding.� Usually his teachers grab me aside and let me know when something noteworthy happens, although sometimes there�s just too big a crowd of excited kids and parents as we�re exiting to communicate.

And so I found out about AJ�s tour as school reader when we arrived this morning and discovered that he had achieved celebrity status. Suddenly everybody knew him. Teachers I�ve never even seen before came up to say �Hi, AJ! How are you today? Thanks for reading to us yesterday!� AJ is basking in his 15 minutes of fame. What four-year-old doesn�t like to be the center of attention? Or, rather, what four-year-old doesn�t think being the center of attention is his birthright?

But I have to admit, this whole thing makes me a little uncomfortable. I�m really glad that AJ�s being encouraged to keep reading and that his teachers are trying to find him challenging things to do. But the singling out worries me.

* * * * *

As I was putting AJ to bed all at once a song that I sang in college came back to me. Our choir accompanist, who was first and foremost a composer, wrote a set of works for women�s chorus based on poems of William Blake. My chamber choir sang them as part of our tour repertoire when we traveled about England during spring break of my junior year. I haven�t thought of them in a long time. The piece that stood out among the set was a setting of �The Lamb.� The movement was actually set for a soloist, but we sang it in unison with flute and cello accompaniment. It was beautiful and haunting. I particularly remember singing it in a very chilly Ely Cathedral one morning at the end of Mass, the shafts of sunlight piercing the windows and pooling on the floor.

Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life and bid the feed
By the stream and o�er the mead.
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly bright.

And so I sang it for AJ, remembering very nearly the whole thing, pitch for pitch. The memory is a marvelous and mysterious thing.

Shortly before AJ�s nap we had been watching a DVD of the three original Wallace and Gromit shorts, one of which was �A Close Shave,� in which a ravenous, shivering sheep (Gromit knits him a colorful sweater to make up for loss of his fleece) named Sean (which, in Wallace�s particular accent, sounds like �shorn,� which he is).

AJ said, � �Softest clothing woolly bright� � is that a song about Sean�s sweater?�

William Blake will never be the same for me now.

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