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                       Advice to Beginners                                 
                          by Ellen Kort                                    
                                                                           
           Begin.  Keep on beginning.  Nibble on everything.               
           Take a hike.  Teach yourself to whistle.  Lie.                  
           The older you get the more they'll want your stories.           
           Make them up.  Talk to stones.  Short-out electric              
           fences.  Swim with the sea turtle into the moon.  Learn         
           how to die.  Eat moonshine pie.  Drink wild geranium            
           tea.  Run naked in the rain.  Everything that happens           
           will happen and none of us will be safe from it.                
           Pull up anchors.  Sit close to the god of night.                
           Lie still in a stream and breathe water.  Climb to the top      
           of the highest tree until you come to the branch                
           where the blue heron sleeps.  Eat poems for breakfast.          
           Wear them on your forehead.  Lick the mountain's                
           bare shoulder.  Measure the color of days                       
           around your mother's death.  Put your hands                     
           over your face and listen to what they tell you.                
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           [NOTE:  Many thanks to Valencia Nelson for sharing this.]       
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