I am here to redeem innocence.
Here to bring it out
from the infantile privilege
that has no notion of the cruelty exacted
on others to insure its rosy ease

Here to redeem it from the blind belief
that dutifully obeys, does what it’s told,
and thinks, thereby, to claim the promised joy

I am here to bring innocence through
the layers of separation
from the earth,
from honest work,
from the instinctive universal kinship
concealed by lies for far too long

To place innocence where it belongs,
where we are not guilty
of blindness or manipulation,
of willful ignorance or shallow bliss,
where we are neither duped nor dastardly,
where knowing all the truth has set us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2021