Return to Nature

The child described in this poem is, presumably, too young to have gotten very far from nature in his or her short life and, therefore, could not have very far to go to return to nature. Still, as a representative of humanity, the child can be viewed as establishing a new bond with the natural surroundings of the canyon. The point of this poem is to draw a parallel between the child and the canyon. The child is "embodied in delight," and the canyon is lit "through cleavages of light / And shadow." The child is small and the canyon immense. The casual reader of these descriptions might see the child and the canyon presented as opposites, but there is nothing in the descriptions that would prevent these two main characters from coming together in the end.

Focusing on the child's excitement, Momaday invites his readers to...