I’m walking through the city park,
my face full of sun —

My mind dips back suddenly
to another such time,
long ago,
when I was craving innocence,
not knowing then
what I know now,
that it is not a property of youth
or of maturity either, for that matter

It is that which is never effaced
by the surface of things,
that which we remain
to the core
through all the changes
that pass through us,
that which I can bask in,
then as now,
that which centers me
in ever present home.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2018