Each passing year brings something new,
Yet takes away a layer too;
And wisdom, earned through joy and pain,
Is teaching me to play again.
How much I wore to fit the crowd!
The measured word, the forehead proud,
The proper wish, the practiced face—
The weight of holding on to place.
The years had settled, dust on dust,
On things I loved before I must;
Now, bit by bit, I brush away
What hid the child beneath the clay.
What use is all I claim to know
If wonder has no room to grow?
What wisdom have I gathered here
If I must guard my joy with fear?
So let me play, forget the score,
And leave my standing at the door;
With muddy feet and windswept hair,
What need have I to get somewhere?
At five, would I have weighed my prayer,
Or simply known that God was there?
I’d tell Him all that filled my day,
Then ask if He would come and play.
And could I laugh as babies do,
A few months old, with all things new—
The same face hiding, then in view,
And joy comes tumbling through anew?
At six, I’d stop beside a tree:
Who taught its leaves to wave at me?
Where does the little ant belong?
And who first gave the bird its song?
I’m learning now to linger there,
To watch a seed ride on the air;
A lifetime’s knowledge cannot close
The question waking in a rose.
Achievement? Such a wistful prize
When held against a child’s wide eyes;
A sad by-product, should its claim
Reduce discovery to a name.
I’ve climbed enough to turn and see
The things that waited patiently:
A beetle’s back, a winding stream,
The clouds that never cease to dream.
Creation has so much to show
When I can say, “I do not know.”
Each answer opens up a door;
I step outside and find ten more.
And God, whom I have sought in thought,
Through all the lessons life has taught,
Shines through whenever I let go
Of needing all the world to know.
The light within needs room to shine
Through fewer claims of “me” and “mine”;
Through open hands, through simple cheer,
Through love that does not count the year.
So may the years keep making room
For all that still has time to bloom;
And may I grow, through work and play,
More open to His world each day.
-Mani