an eager crawl becomes a walk

"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive" - Katsushika Hokusai

Now, I cannot give you anything of value

for life beyond this remains beyond me

so I cry, as I am no more than

a child playing with words

and crawl toward the years ahead

an eager crawl turns to a walk,

which soon becomes a run

and eventually I'm sprinting

now I ask you, what will happen

when I've left my breath behind

and I find that I would rather know of nothing