one at once

A simple step to take to be reborn.

it's true
the perfect age
is three
when nothing's less than
harmony

but one
at once
my age ascends
the straight and simple
slowly bends--

i'll never be that
child again.

i'm of the same
both flesh and mind
and all's between is
time time time

and
time is good for
thinking free

but
too much thinking
wears on me.
i forgot it--
what it is to be.

so back to source's
source before.
where else--the water
and the shore?

alone in peace
i hear Her song
against the wind
and feel His dance
upon my skin

i find myself
a child again.

Author's Note

I originally wrote this poem in May of 2007, but just edited it tonight to ease the flow of the meter, and added/subtracted a few words here and there to make it better communicate what event (and idea) I had in mind back when I first wrote it.

Reviews

[Pax Analog]

This is like a nursery rhyme for a grown-up.

When you mention "source," I'm drawn back before the simpler child to something simpler still, yet more mysterious: Unborn Mind, a la Zen.

Child and adult both have their pros and cons. My sense of this other radical intuition is more akin to "hell with over-identifying with this fleeting persona that disappears in the blink of an eye."

Since "becoming as little children" has some scriptural resonance, perhaps it's a jumping-off point, from stripped time to timeless pre-incarnation. You've set this "wayback machine" in motion, and I can't stop! ;-)

"What was your face before you were born?" goes the koan. However you slice it, less is more. "I" is enigma.

[Brandon Lee]

Usually i hate the rhyming thing but you have something here and is best described by another crit. here a child's nursery rhyme. Great work.

-B

[David]

But I still fear
the end, the end
the sin