the high road, or the low road?

which child do we release?

I like to wear a t-shirt that shouts

“Searching for the Adult Within,”

the child within me feels close to the surface,

at least that child defined  by

joy, optimism, by play,

by a laugh at incongruity, at improbability,

that child whom Jesus welcomes to come in,

“for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,”

yet that child can also be ignorant and self-indulgent, 

refuse to grow up into a social conscience,

woe be unto us when "adults"

can seem to live an unaware life 
and not grow up

to understand cause and effect,

that expenses need to be paid for,

that others are as real as one’s self,

that wanting something to be true

doesn’t just automatically make it so,

that the basest of our desires

need more curbing than releasing,

the child can see truths we need to see,

and we are better for it,

the child can also see self-indulgence as truth,

and damn us to a low road.

by Henry H. Walker

January 26, ‘17