Only the Innocent

The greatest treasure hunt in all existence
is an intangible expression of inexplicable
ecstasy, there for a moment, gone the
next, its evanescent presence the very
simplest and earliest of all our emotions,
pure unalloyed pleasure in the joy of being.
Once experienced, never forgotten, its
memory lingers and we search endlessly
for its source. There issues an exquisitely
feverish journey through life's chapters
in its fruitless, elusive quest, as though
it was but an apparition that nature teased
us with, an unattainable goal we believe
can be achieved but which moves further
and further beyond reach until we replace
hope with resignation realizing that the
ancient search for the Fountain of Youth
had a misinterpreted purpose; not that
its discovery would restore the existential
quality of the angelic horde and we would
live forever more, but that it would act
to briefly restore us to infancy, once more
to experience that joy of being before
age again overcame us to usher us quietly
into the antechamber of sober oblivion.