An Ode to Childhood
She dances behind her mother,
twirling through the grocery store,
as she gives pet names to the vegetables,
enclosed in her imaginary setting.
But the seven-year-old cannot imagine
the reality of this unjust world:
slavery, violence, poverty, disease –
All are far from her Garden of Eden.
She curls up in her father’s lap
through the blaring storms
that frighten her in the night,
and she falls asleep in his arms.
Oh to be seven again,
to gaze through the eyes
of an innocent child
with no anxieties about life.
Open your heart to simplicity;
Trust Jesus to hold you in his arms.
Place your worries in the past
and don’t pick them up again.
Oh to be seventeen,
someday you will say.
When you learned to take
the bliss of adolescence
and use it to fight injustice.
When the suffering cries of the world
broke your heart and rebuilt your compassion.
When you first learned to reach out
with the love of Christ.
