Love and Innocence (For Edward)

This poem is another sestina (see Butterfly House), an obsessive form where the last word of the lines in each 6 line stanza repeat at the end of lines in the next 5 stanzas, except they are in a different place. Then there is a 3 line envoi, which contains the 6 words again.

This is for my grandson Edward, born in January 2018.

Love and Innocence

We begin our journey in life
with boundless wonder in our eyes -
The world is huge when we are young
as we are very rudely born
in flurries of natural love
our lives begin with innocence.

But hidden by our innocence
the darkest fact of earthly life
we only know of care and love
we see compassion in their eyes
the fear of death is not yet born
when we are small, when we are young.

What would we give to stay so young
before we lost our innocence
before our doubts and dread were born?
To live the infant's carefree life
when we saw with cloudless eyes
unconditional, boundless love.

But what of adolescent love?
Its arrows pierce our hearts when young.
To be enraptured by their eyes
and yearn for loss of innocence
to lose your track of daily life
as all-consuming love is born.

In Cupid's arms we then are born,
transported on a tide of love
bright light illuminates our life.
It makes us feel so very young
without our former innocence
when love shines from their starlit eyes.

As the light fades from our eyes
they say another soul is born
in a child-like state of innocence,
an everlasting world of love
where once again we can be young
in the realm of infinite life.

When in our eyes lives only love,
born fresh in hope when we were young,
we pass in innocence through life.

Tim Fellows 2018