What I have learned
I no longer know. 
The little that I still know,
I have guessed.
                  — Nicholas Chamfort

That there is more room for truth
in silence than in words.
And that those who know
never tell what they know
for fear of lying.
Instead, they say take a journey
or plant a tree watch it grow
or learn the language of wind.
If you are fool enough,
you take their advice.
But soon you learn a great truth:
nothing they say makes sense.

Eighteen months later, maybe more,
you come to a river too deep,
a leaf breaks off
and is carried away,
someone keeps calling your name.
When you tell them this,
they say you come along fast.
When you ask how much longer,
they stretch their arms out wide.
When you tell them a person
could waste a lifetime this way,
they say what you have guessed!