Passage from The Favourite Game — Leonard Cohen

Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. it is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. Flowers once the size of pine trees return to clay pots. Even terror diminishes. The giants and giantesses of the nursery shrink to crabby teachers and human fathers. Breavman forgot everything he learned from Lisa's small body.