Innocence

 

      Innocence

Where did my joyful innocence go?

So light, so bright, with steps of fire.

Where went gaiety laughing with truth,

That saw not the loveliness in its own eye?

 

Heavy lead feet and a shoulder bowed

How came the mind so cloudy?

Walking and searching and calling aloud;

This body can scarcely be me!

 

How can I call back all that I was?

I laughed with the sky and ran with the clouds.

Sheep were my friends; the trees were my guides,

The strong waves called to my innermost pride.

What can I hope for now that it's gone -

The strength and the joy, a gift of the gods?

What can I be now, lost from myself,

Remembering only the person I was.

 

Now is the time to start anew

The spiral is there in the making.

Now I can see with a longer view:

If only my heart would awaken!

 

Innocence never will last too long

(Although it exists forever)

For how can we know if we know that we know?

Growing pains, birth pangs – we need it.

 

So I must learn with innocent steps

To laugh at the weight of my knowledge.

None would believe me, so silence I’ve kept,

But now you can laugh at my poem.

 

            (The first one! 1980)