Kite

Learn to go and turn to go,

and whistle where you might;

have an apple, be an apple,

go and fly a kite.

Fly so high and cry so high

and strings crisscross your shoes.

And if a little will a little,

sit and watch the news.

Take a dime and make a dime,

and learn a little math,

but if you teach a leach to preach,

here’s yet another path.

So if you know to say you know

an empty head’ll do,

and if you act autodidact

they’ll say what is you knew.

Because it’s fun to sing and run

and harder far to say,

a talk’s a better way to walk,

and keeps the hairs from gray.

Blow the wind around the bend,

and watch it turn the tails,

so if you’d fly before you die,

remember kites are sails.

Love the sea and learn to be

another kind of boat,

but if you sneeze between the trees,

still better far to float.

Because a laugh is not a graph,

but a second sort of tear,

the little joke goes up in smoke

with every passing year.

So if this kite could fly quite right,

and never crooked go,

it’s not a toy, it’s not a boy,

and it’s not falling snow.

And if it’s there up in the air,

and if the string is taut,

because you know I’d like to know,

it’s only what you taught.