Hello and welcome to Cook and Crank, the Cosmic Poetry Podcast. I'm your host, Simon Pole, the Cosmic Poet. The experience of an old man, what is it worth? Tro, if you have eyes to listen and ears to see. Our poem today is called Beyond Me, and this is where the future takes all those who come after. There we will go after the break. Beyond me Beyond me you will live, my playful boy, beyond me in gardens, girl with your toy, this old man you see, who walks with a cane, whose skin blotching shows, whose movement is pain, was limber like you, alive to the world, all new was the playfield, golden hair curled like leaves of snatched triumph about my quick head, in danger I dove, the wicked I wed. For a while you know, only I cared to indulge myself, at others I stared, if cautioned they me, of others take heed, but how could such rules my ravening feed? Myself I would make, as others would too, and little or nothing was to them due. Get me wrong not, neither stole I nor killed, yet I always I lived, my selfish cup filled. Large measures of self to fresh youth are due, and pitiful them who no wild time knew, but labor beneath the hand of the past, who into a mould unwilling are cast, and there hardened stiff, in thought, word and deed, constricted within their forefathers creed, however good and however it right, encounter the false and faults in you fight. My counsel is this, and all there is dark, by glooms which encroach, thus know you the spark that in you was lit by him who creates, and also the realm which history fates to which you are born, how can you perceive the colour of each and knowledge receive, of good's value whole, unless you lip taste the ashes of bad, the opposites waste? I no more suggest you practice their harm, walk but in their midst, their bravely disarm, each salvo they make, these probers of ill, and so you will know each trick on the bill, each subterfuge low they feigning deploy, for ambushes are the backbiter's joy, but be it not yours, instead feel the shell accrue you around against ambient hell And no greater shield will have you at hand, than that round your heart, the compassing band, in layers within, each tested and taught, which adventure has with pain payment bought, this glimpsed life of yours, small boy and small girl, though mayhap you think I crazy words hurl, Over your nodding heads at cheerful play, here store them I will, your arms for the day. The graduate day when rise you to go, beyond playing fields, the home ground you know, The protected place, the pleasant fringed park, For unfriendly climbs which no language mark, that learned you in youth, the guide bequeathed here, take dearly to heart, and let you there steer, by what it suggests, a route, not a rule, but he who rude spurns the compassless fool. For who stands alone and now do us proud, think little of this admonishing loud, this old man's address, but scroll it away in some dusty nook, where needful one day it may be recalled, and me with it too, who out of himself his life lessons drew, and shared it with faith the future would be a roadway which rolls beyond me. You have just heard Beyond Me from the poetry collection Poems for Ocean. I'm your cosmic poet and host, Simon Pohl. Visit the website Simonpol.ca for more cosmic poetry, including the book you've just read from. We'll be back soon on the Cook and Crank Podcast with more readings from the Poems for Ocean Collection. Until then, remember, poetry is the water of life, though whiskey might be too. Goodbye.