When I Am Young Again

for Asha

When I am young again,
I will be old.

Born wrinkled,
gray by kindergarten,
a different kind of unsteadiness
in my first toddling steps.

Or, perhaps,
I will look like other children.
Until you look into my eyes.

My eyes will remember before my voice can tell.
Remember the long road
of learning to use a body,
and then learning how not to use it,
and then letting it go.

When I am young again,
my mind and my heart
will seem two separate beings.
But I will remember the truth,
and I will remind them.

When I am young again,
I will play politely with toys,
my parents smiling over me,
but I will not cry
if they take the toys away.

I will look ahead into the memory
of my earlier later years,
and see the long procession of toys,
of jobs, relationships, challenges, glories—
I will see them come,
and I will see them go.
And I will be free to laugh.

When I am young again,
the distance in my eyes
will not seem far away,
but will offer us space
for our souls to meet.

When I am young again,
I will not hesitate
to grow older,
greeting each year as an old friend.

And as I grow older
again,
I will marvel.

I will marvel at God’s play in the world,
and at His expanding light within me,
drawing me ever more joyfully onward,
until that final, blessed moment of freedom,

when I am young again,

when I am eternal.