The Return
An Idea ran about the world screaming with the pain of the mind until it met a child who stopped it with a word.
The Idea leaned over those newborn eyes and dreamed of the nature of things: the nature of memory and the nature of love; and forgave itself and all men.
Quieted in a sea of sleeping the Idea began its long return– renewed by the child’s sea-colored eyes remembered the flesh, smiled and said:
I see birds, spring and the birthplace unknown by the stable stone. I know light and I know motion and I remember I am not alone.
The Idea voyaged nearer my breathing, saying Come balance come into the love of these faces and forces find us our equilibrium.
And the child stirred, asking his questions. The Idea grew more fleshly and spoke: Beaten down I was Down I knew very long Newborn I begin.
And the child went on asking his questions.
The Idea journeying into my body returned, and I knew the nature of One, and could forget One, and turn to the child, and whole could turn to the world again.
Until the pain turns into answers And all the masters become askers And all the victims again doers And all the sources break in light
The child goes alive, asking his questions.
Muriel Rukeyser
