Loss of Innocence
By John Herlihy

Remember innocence and its sense of holy splendor;
When it first saw the light of day as an infant, tender.
Remember the sweet bud when the world feels right;
Nature’s innocence assumes a color whiter than white.

The bud of innocence never fully extended into bloom.
Betrayed and despoiled, greeted by its own lethal doom;
Even if it does awaken, it is limited by the force of the hour.
Ticking seconds away until death closes down the flower.

The loss of innocence pays the price of human suffering;
Corruption takes its place at the price of truth suffocating.
When man or woman takes over from the innocent child;
Everything they touch becomes in some manner defiled.

Innocence disappears into the mist like a restless child;
Shadows gather, light fades, the pond waters seem mild.
When snow begins to descend on this side of midnight,
We remember our innocence and its offering of light.

Now innocence lies hidden in the rain showers of Spring;
Crocuses emerge from the ground for their brief little fling.
The perfume of innocence still lingers in a child’s smile;
The whisper of innocence still echoes in the wind’s wild.

A little innocence sometimes falls down an inside hole,
To take root deep within the hallowed ground of our soul.
If our sins cast elongated shadows in silhouette to light,
Our innocence burrows deep within the silence of the night.

Shining as a courageous knight of the illustrious golden age,
Held in portraiture as a damsel in distress to history’s page.
Innocence, our fallen angel, where have you gone on earth?
We have lost our feathered wings at the arrival of our birth.

Oh sweet scent of the emerging rose now corrupted black,
Stuffed in memoriam as a captured thief in life’s dusty sack.
Sweet innocence, never forgotten, a butterfly with wings,
Holy innocence, always remembered, a bird that sings.

Innocence is never truly lost; it simply waits to be found;
Somehow our innocence has lost its way and run aground.
The loss of innocence a price we pay with no clear reckoning.
Listen to the call of innocence and you will hear it beckoning.