Friday, October 9, 2009

Risk



My teacher says,
You've got to stink first.

I tell her, I don't have time to stink -
at 64 years old
I go directly to perfection
or I go nowhere.

Perfection is nowhere,
she says, So stink.
Stink like a beginner,
stink like decaying flesh,
old blood,
cold sweat,
she says,
I know a woman who's eighty-six,
last year she learned to dive.


Lisa Colt

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for this poem -- and the very appropriate picture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, this poem blew me away. And you don't have to be any particular age to appreciate its many lessons about what I call the amateur spirit and what the zen folks would call beginner's mind.

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