A Poem: Childlike

It is the child in us who holds out its hand
that life may fall into it.

It is the adult in us,
forgetting that life is not something grasped,
so much as given.

It is the child in us who receives without question
that wonder might exist.

It is adult in us that measures each hand’s gains
that they meet expectations.

It is the child in us decreasing as we age
until we see how the world in disappointing us

has shrunk our perspective.

And then, like the husk of the seed pod broken,
or our outer dermis of skin shed,

adulthood is understood
as the very thing making us oblivious

to the wonder ever erupting and
falling as rain upon the earth.

And we might travel back then,
though in all appearances appear the same.

But with our face assuming the wisdom of the aged
and the peace of the unambitious.

And we stop so much attaining,
as dreaming again.

Life returning as something rebirthed,
or something of which

we are newly conscious.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
September 2021