Barley Literate: “…ever a child…”

Friday, May 20, 2016

I may think, whimsically, that I would like to be a child again….don't we all have such a thought, in some way, at certain times?

Of course we don't want to relive any of the unhappy or fearful moments. I pass along these penetrating dream thoughts from poet Toyohiko Kagawa:

I want to be ever a child.

I want to feel an eternal friendship

for the raindrops, the flowers,

the insects, the snowflakes.

I want to be keenly interested in everything,

. . . may I never find myself yawning at life.

Think like a child for a time. See new things, talk in rhyme. Sing a song. Let the kindred feelings be strong.

From "A Prayer" in Kagawa's Songs of the Slums, Cokesberry, 1935. Translated from the Japanese by Lois Erickson.

Posted January 10, 2014 on the blog A Year Of Being Here.

Barley Literate