Advice

Advice

You've come to me to seek advice, but I am old and stupid...

And what have I to offer you that isn't merely vapid?

If you would seek what's practical, or what advances most,

Go talk to those who're practical, and of advances boast...

But I can tell you what I've learned. It may be little use...

But it is free. To follow it, you always can refuse...

What little I have learned of note, I haven't learned from books...

But I have learned we cannot judge a thing by how it looks...

So look a little deeper then.  Do not, as you are told...

Do what you think is right.  Reject the lies that you are sold...

Let zealots force their fearful views upon the ones who follow,

Let cynics fish for sly rewards in waters safely shallow...

Be brave, my friend, embrace the deep and see the burning stars...

Go find that peace that lets us live amidst our senseless wars...

But know that you can tour the world and never find it there...

That peace resides within yourself, if you can shed your fear...

Of hubris, though, you must beware... Remember to be humble...

And listen to that person too, who seems to only mumble...

How much there is to understand, how little do we know...

And yet we dream we know it all – and then we have to go...

How manifold this universe, in which we live a while...

How little we have understood, we see and so we smile...

But you are young and I've no wish to rob you of your mooring...

I wish that I could tell you more, but I'd be long and boring...

You came to me to seek advice, I gave you only puzzles...

But shield your eyes, so you can see, from all that merely dazzles...

But you have seen a bit of this, a bit of that, my friend...

And you are bright, so you can tell me how to face my end...

No, do not go!  I only jest.  You've got to take a joke...

We still can talk awhile before it's time for me to croak...

2013 July 14th, Sat., 6:07 am.

Brooklyn