In the Eyes of the World
In the eyes of the world
now that you are nineteen
you can vote and visit bars,
and as an independent citizen
are free to make choices, even those that make wars—
in the eyes of the world
you need no advice from anyone,
not even God, and your bodily beauty
naturally belongs to you alone;
even to that new being it may bear, you owe no duty—
in the eyes of the world
but the eyes of the world have always been blind
to the life that pulses at the root of the tree,
in the heart of the child, in the resolute mind,
and in the love that asks for nothing but to be.