Too Young
to be wise is to have lived and understood.
I see it all before me, the end,
the tender, graceful scene.
Jasmine hints the air
of a quiet summer evening.
A garden blooms and shows
the age on which it has
grown; of wisdom and strength
and love, and several wooden posts.
A house of collected memories,
each tender and good; and a thousand
stories within them, of all that had
once lived. The kind of stories museums
don't keep, for they cannot understand,
that art and beauty pass away, and so, people, too,
but laughter and love and broken toys
tell stories that make a house a home.
But we are too young.
Too young to love.
Too young to understand
that deeply another person,
to be wise – no,
they say we are too young.
And how I long for the days ahead of me -
to gain new life and be no
longer too young to understand.
Some say people are like
wine – better with time.
But since I don't care for wine
I will say people are like gumbo.
Good the first day, better the second,
and best the last few days of its
short but rather wonderful life.
Life is short, they say, but
we are too young to understand.
Life is short, so live it up.
Carpe diem! But, they say,
we are too young.
We are too young
to understand what they understand.
But every day we still get a
chance, like them, to learn.
And perhaps my garden right now
does not grow like theirs,
and perhaps my house is
small because I don't have as many
stories, but what few I do have still make a home.
And perhaps I am too young
to know a person like I know
places on a map I long to go.
Perhaps my love is not yet strong
enough to weather all the storms
I must face.
But I am not too young
to love.
Life is short, they say,
so I will live and love
while I am able for
I know not when I die,
and perhaps now my love is
like un-aged wine.
It will be better with time.
But since time is short
and I don't have the pleasure of knowing
how much I have
I will look at my love
like gumbo – good today, better
tomorrow, and even better after that.
I can see it all before me, the end -
jasmine fills the air with its
summer smells and I have a
garden, grown from love, strength,
and wisdom I gathered my whole life.
Perhaps my hands will be wrinkly and
arthritic, paying me back
for playing piano and writing
all those long years.
But perhaps they will look
as they do now. Perhaps I die too young.
But if I do it will be alright.
I know I will be fulfilled
for my house is already a home,
filled with stories and scars and broken,
beautiful things.
And I may be too young to be
wise, but I have lived and understood.
So I take what wisdom I have with that and
say “Carpe diem!”
I am young.
