July/August 2001 Living Now
Innocent

by Arthur Smid

We wear our innocence
Until fear consumes it
And creates illusions.

We wear our deception
A false security traded
As a daily occupation,

To hold back the unknown.
We pretend, but cannot know.
This is all we have as humanity,

Becomes itself but not itself.
Made through form to awareness of form.
The perceiver becomes itself at last,

Pure perception,
Unafraid to lose yourself,
And weep at the naked edge of mystery.

Arthur Smid, 2001