- All I Ever Need to Know –

John Herlihy

Once I thought:

What is it that I don’t know?

A question easily asked and answered.

Knowledge of everything under the sun,

Beyond the moon and stars as well.

I know next to nothing so far as I can tell.

Then I thought:

What is it that I want to know?

A question that forces me to think deep down.

How to live? How to be happy? How to thrive?

Look inside a wishing well where answers arrive,

As rays of light shining in a darkened well.

Then I thought:

What is it that I need to know?

A question asked but not easily answered.

The question just raises more questions.

Our desires reach for the outside,

Our needs arise from the inside.

Then I thought:

I knew all I need to know when I was young,

No questions asked, only answers bestowed.

Into the cloth of innocence sewed,

God lives out there and in here.

Simple I thought, so long as God is near.

Then I thought:

What I learned then may no longer apply.

In an ever-changing world on what to rely?

Earth’s immensity does outer space belie.

I looked to the horizon and saw earth’s lip,

Against the lip of infinite sky, we are but a blip.

Then I thought:

Are there things I will never know?

The answer: Yes, that and much more.

Raising more questions never to be answered:

Who was I? Where did I go?

Our destiny will tell us what it has in store.

Finally, I thought:

Will I ever know what I need to know?

The answer also Yes: that too and so much more.

In true knowing, there is no need,

The light of the soul from darkness freed.

From the outer surface down to the inner core.

All of this and so much more.

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(c) John Herlihy 8 January 2019