Ode to Innocence

Oh half-remembered, fleeting happy time,

When nothing mattered more than love and play,

Imagination was then in its prime,

And life began anew with every day.

 

A flower was then a joy, a mystery,

And not a petal, root and simple stem,

And life was full of wondrous fantasy,

Untainted by the intellect of man.

 

That time is gone now, It cannot return,

The fruit's been swallowed, its slow poison kills,

And yet my fallen heart will always yearn,

For that ephemeral time of unknown skills.

 

Oh false god, knowledge, daily you destroy,

All that was holy in me as a boy!

 

From Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems (C) 1978, 2011 Victor D. Lopez