FIELDS OF INNOCENCE

Through the oceans of pain
My infant eyes see a dream
The fields of innocence are past me
I am standing near reality’s stream

They tell me waters flow here
In directions they were never supposed to be
And the shadows of foliage form
Shadows we must never see

They tell me its all dark here
The stars never come, sun never shines
All you see is an engulfing vacuum
That washes over streams of blood pristine

My little heart squirms aloud
At just these descriptions of reality
Let me go back to my fields of innocence
Where lay my ignorance and sanity

There is no stream worth crossing
At the cost of my silver fireflies
There’s no tenor worth hearing
At the cost of those unabashed cries

I look at that stream now
Its as placid as it is cold
I see my reflection all distorted
And laugh and realize its just too old

Too stagnant to run,
And hence called vile
Too caught to rush free
Its labeled senile

I laugh at that stream of promise
That the world so fears and hopes to ride
While it lays sighing and squirming
It doesn’t need all that blood, just a tide

My gait returned, my path so clear
To my fields of ignorance I must go
As they form my fields of innocence now
On the strength of which the stream of realities flow

copyright 2006 shruti bhutada

people claim that innocence is but a childhood epidemic, and u grow over it like polio. that the real world of adults is big, bad and nasty, where there is no room for innocence, or purity of thought, and that people having such qualities are usually exploited and used and abused in the real world. this poem is my answer to all such people....