Poem: "An Innocence Reclaimed"
This was the linkback perk poem for the June 5, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl, originally hosted by Dreamwidth user Dialecticdreamer. 7 of 9 verses have been posted. It came out of the March 20, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from Dreamwidth user Bairnsidhe. This poem belongs to the Yellow Unicorns series.
An Innocence Reclaimed
It is not innocence of the body
that unicorns find so attractive,
but innocence of the spirit,
which is rarer and harder to find.
There are children too young
to know the ways of the world,
who toddle into the meadows
where the tolerant unicorns
step carefully around them.
Most of them grow out of that.
Some remain innocent,
even as their peers grow up
and turn to more wordly concerns.
Then there is the saint in the cave,
who sits on top of the hill where
there unicorns come to look out
over the valley below.
He is old and wrinkled, and
has seen much of the world.
His is an innocence reclaimed
by setting aside the concerns of life,
one by one, until his eyes are as
clear and empty as a child's.
The unicorns come and
graze lazily around his feet,
and he does not chase them.
An Innocence Reclaimed
It is not innocence of the body
that unicorns find so attractive,
but innocence of the spirit,
which is rarer and harder to find.
There are children too young
to know the ways of the world,
who toddle into the meadows
where the tolerant unicorns
step carefully around them.
Most of them grow out of that.
Some remain innocent,
even as their peers grow up
and turn to more wordly concerns.
Then there is the saint in the cave,
who sits on top of the hill where
there unicorns come to look out
over the valley below.
He is old and wrinkled, and
has seen much of the world.
His is an innocence reclaimed
by setting aside the concerns of life,
one by one, until his eyes are as
clear and empty as a child's.
The unicorns come and
graze lazily around his feet,
and he does not chase them.