Only me, only time

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck

When the child was a child,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

To wake up in the morning and find the earth covered by a blanket of snow is one of the joys of childhood. The earth recovers something of her primitive simplicity, her spontaneity. The snow slows down time...

And still, it must be said, the first snowfall of the season has the capacity to fire the imagination, to rekindle the innocence that some thought was lost. Like an underground stream that suddenly emerges into the open, we are reminded that though some things may be forgotten or hidden from our eyes we can always reclaim the lost treasures. Time can be regained...

A hundred new worlds lie in its verses
Whole centuries are involved in its moments
----The Allama

Who is to say only me? To say 'I' is already to affirm the speech and language of others, is already to place oneself in the world. The stones, the trees, the kingfishers also affirm...

Who is to say there is only time? To recognize time, to take joy in a fleeting moment, to be aware of the deep rhythms of the seasons, is already to point to what lies beyond time, to understand that the miraculous is already folded in the moments of time.