Awakening

Awakening

When we were young
our lives were measured by here and now.
Nothing was that could not be seen, heard, felt.
The sea was for swimming and trees were for climbing.
We ate and we played, and we slept.

As we grew older
our lives became sufficient for our living.
The horizon stretched further, and awareness was deeper.
We started to love the sea and the trees for themselves.
We learned and we loved, but still we slept.

Was the growth of awareness
a loss of innocence or an awakening
- when the uncomplicated love of our childhood
became the courtship of minds and bodies,
stirring the seed-pods of sexuality.

And the emotional recesses of the mind left
the sea crashing in our ears
long after we had left the shore,
the trees weaving an eternal backcloth
for our thoughts.

After the awakening
we now settle uneasily to wait for each new spring,
uncertain of its source or destination.
Is it a surging sea that comes to drown our human senses?
- a falling tree to crush our mortal hopes?

Is it the last awakening of our life - our death?