Advice to Beginners by Ellen Kort
Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything.
Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie.
The older you get, the more they'll want your stories.
Make them up. Talk to stones. Short out electric fences.
Swim with the sea turtle into the moon.
Learn how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild geranium tea.
Run naked in the rain. Everything that happens will happen
and none of us will be safe from it.
Pull up anchors. Sit close to the god of night.
Lie still in a stream and breathe water. Climb to the top of the highest tree
until you come to the branch where the blue heron sleeps.
Eat poems for breakfast. Wear them on your forehead.
Lick the mountain's bare shoulder.
Measure the colour of days around your mother's death.
Put your hands over your face and listen to what they tell you.
