For Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats poetry challenge, today’s quote is taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats: ‘The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;’
Jane’s blog is: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com
My poem is called: WHEN THERE WAS BUT A WAVE
Was it not all an ocean once
before bodies forged out land
for feet to fondle, to flatten?
Was it not all trickling tide once
before hands hunted harbors
for bellies to fill, to fatten?
Was it not all blue waters once
before creatures courted color
to devaluate, to distinguish?
Was it not just wind and wave
before man thought to wonder
what on earth he could extinguish?
What will ripple on the waterfront
when the tides turn on time
and man is pulled asunder?
What will be the second coming
when man is taken down for all
his pillage and all his plunder?
When rivers rise all red and roar
to wash away the tarnished trace
of the soiled sand we ravaged,
will it carry on it’s current
the power to plant a second seed
on the land our deeds have damaged?
Time turns on every twist,
tides rise after every fall
but we can never get back to before.
Innocence, once lost,
is quickly forgotten.
All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly
Audio version available on Soundcloud…
https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/when-there-was-but-a-wave
Damien B. Donnelly 
You can never return to innocence.
But how sad that we try to race so far from it, so quickly! Even babies seem to be born older nowadays!
Another flood and another tree to start again, but without us.
Maybe it will last longer than way
Shame we won’t be there to see it. But we’ve had our chance and we fluffed it.
That way
Power brokers will always try to ensure that we lose our innocence.
And this is us moving forwards!!!
Hopefully the meeks will one day will inherit the world, but who knows what that world will be.
Innocent does seem an archaic term at the moment. But your evocation of the sea is lovely. (K)
Too true! 🤗
You stated it so beautifully again, dear Dami!
I sometimes get the impression that innocence has become something people consider one should be ashamed of. As if innocent people have seen nothing of the world and do not know anything about life. Obviously a set up that is supposed to tempt us to give up our own innocence so that those who already lost it do not have to face their shame about themselves. (As if it was possible to run from that…!)
Personally, I believe, someone who manages to maintain innocence during times like those we just experienced must be a very strong and wise person with a powerful light.
Thank you for your wonderful and inspiring poetry!
Much Love,
Steffi ♥
Thanks ou so much Steffi for your comments and support. I completely agree with you- there is such a push away from innocence, in place of power, of greed, of consumerism, of commonality. Shamefully days indeed!
🤗🤗