Innocence
Knows no boundaries
Knows no hatreds
Knows no wars
But it is not all coy smiles
Happiness wrapped
In a best friend’s warm arms
Even the innocents
Know hunger
Even the innocents learn fear
I would wrap these two up
Protect them from such lessons
But mine is the world
They should learn
To fear
The world men made
The world men maintain
A world not made
For innocence
The wide-eyed innocence
Beyond recollection
Beyond nuance
When the world could only register
In stark simplicities
Mommy/not mommy
Pain/tickle/ooooh!
Shiny!
When I was free
To express
Every goddamn emotion
I felt
In every moment
A torrent of tears
Screams of anguish
A coo for a stranger’s caress
Giggles for the silly thing
Shaken for my joy only
And awe
So much awe
Now nuance has become unsubtle
Which tinges awe
With the immensity
Of evil
So I long for an innocence
I cannot recall
Knowing it only in the eyes
Of those who have no words
To remind me of it
I envy the present
That lives behind their eyes
But the future?
I fear for them
Something about
The innocence of a child
Whether a babe asleep
In its pram
A toddler’s glee
In their first steps
The wide-eyed wonder
Of a pre-schooler’s discovery
Something to warm
The coldest heart
Something to stir ferocity
Toward any threat
Nothing rouses the extremes
Of love or Ire
As the innocence of a child
So too does Nature
Carve and weather
Heave and crumble
Building castles
Made of stone
Pix to Words 