Is it from birth to death

With naught betwixt

But pulsing breath

That chance affixed?

The mirror does with wrinkles grow,

To charge so clear the changes slow

That, surely, stages are implied

Within the ages to reside:

From crawl to walk,

Infant to talk,

Or learn to teach,

Life does beseech

Hard won wisdom to impart

Into another’s naïve heart,

As life a living

Gift for giving,

Withheld does so soon depart.

As ships that sail

Go rot and frail,

The youngest seems

Fittest to cast,

With sturdy beams

And solid mast,

Though unto rocks

A young ship flocks

Without the lessons of a past;

So, as thy splintered beams are bare,

And as thy sail does start to tear,

While you can yet act and think,

Before thee does but surely sink,

Board unto another boat

And teach it how to stay afloat!

-Poyetikos