America may be a square,
Education may come in a ready-made box,
the value of knowledge may be equal
to the money you spend,
But I Say:
Feed on knowledge
in a basket
wrapped in leaves.
Taste its meaning
in the soft meat
of coconuts
and green velvet Kalo.
Absorb wisdom
in the silence before dawn
in the sound of the sea in the trees,
in the faint pounding of the ocean on the reef.
And above all,
value the telling of mythic stories
leaping, and bounding, and threading
voice, and sound, and blood
spiraling back to the origin of time,
internally, externally, eternally.
Karen K.L. Espaniola April 3, 2012
