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.