Youth

In youth, in blankness, I—devoid of lies and sin—
refuse to wrinkle with age and experience
and dilute purity with Time’s acerbic gin.
A child, if only spiritually, thence.

Sweet schoolyard secret, whispered promise of childhood,
to love thoughtlessly, ignore the outer shell—
appeal to the time in which we stood.
We knew so little any glimpse of Hell.

I never felt safer than in my father’s arms
and never love like that of Mother’s smile.
No flower, sweet as candy, compares to youth’s charm
no life valued higher than that of a child.

So, edging to the ends of our short lives,
when all else abandons us, youth still survives.