-- Thru the Eyes of a Child --

By John Herlihy

The old man drew white smoke from his ancient pipe,

Saw a rising calligraphy of smoke against the emerging light.

As scribbled curlicues of meaning that newly entered his mind,

To land on crumpled parchment amid the dust motes of time.

Ah, the time has now come for him to see the world again,

Not the old world of his own making, lodged way back when.

But a new world of God’s making of infinity, eternity drawn,

To relive the beauty of his youth when his world was born.

He summoned his grandchild now grown seven years old,

The age of reason when the logic of the world could be told.

The boy saw the world as only the Divine Being could know;

The child’s purity will take the old man where he must go.

“How can a child take an old man back there,” he was asked?

Children know next to nothing and are hardly up to the task.

“How could but a wisp of a child know the grandeur of such things?”

“The child knows not,” the old Pasha replied, “but he flies on wings.”

On wings of memory, indeed, did the child fly into the eye of God,

To envision the sky above as the heavens, the earth below as sod.

Surely, the old man saw heaven’s blue and the outer space of night;

But he no longer saw sacred wonder in the depths of his inner sight.

The old man was content to listen, with the beloved child on his knee,

Knowing that God created the universe as a child would want to see.

Indeed, God created the earthly realm with a beauty that could be seen;

Only a child could find the simple words to unveil what it may all mean.

With sharp talons, the old man clutched the slight arms of the boy,

Then leaned down to whisper in his ear, as if he were but a little toy.

“Relate to me what you see,” he rasped. “Let nothing escape your gaze.”

The little child looked up, down and all around, as if looking thru haze.

“I see a line there in the distance that seems to be the lip of the world;

Heaven and earth greet each other with a kiss as the clouds swirled.”

The old man pondered a moment, and then breathed a sigh of relief;

Again, he saw the beloved horizon, his long life now seemed but brief.

“I see the sun’s light climb waves in the sky on a journey across waters.”

“We know of the day’s end,” the boy winked, “we watch as squatters.”

Indeed, the old man knew full well the brightness of the sun gives way;

Even a sun climbs down the day’s backstairs into a twilight on the bay.

“I see the wind,” the boy sighed, “stirring leaf and branch in the trees.

“Do you hear its roar,” the child asked mockingly, feeling gentle breeze?

The old man did hear its roar, across the ages, as breath of the earth,

As voice of the lion, the whispers of leaves, first voices at their birth.

“I see shadows caused by the light,” chimed the boy, “moving slightly.”

“As little ghosts of darkness on the run,” the child added, “a little sprightly.”

Indeed, the sage said to himself, who knew well the world’s shadows;

Shadows are the hallmark of the earth, even in the brightest meadows.

Suddenly the boy became restless, “I see something never seen before.

“The world as in a dream, shimmering in light, lifting upward ready to soar.”

Indeed, the boy on his knee, the day, the entire world finally did give way;

Before him a new world, behind him memories, in life’s wake, floating away.

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(c) John Herlihy 25 April 2019