Dont Tell Me/How Old I Am Poem by Shalom Freedman

DON'T TELL ME /HOW OLD I AM


Don't tell me
How old I am
And what I haven't done in my life
And where I am not going after I die
Don't tell me how bad and sad and empty it all is
And how Nothing is Everything after all
And that even the bones of Shakespeare will be unremembered dust one day
Don't tell me about Nada and more Nada
And the black sky and the dark matter and the dying universe
An all that empty cold entropy and those little particles of dispersed dust at the end of it all
Don't tell me how fake multiverses and phony multi-dimensional other worlds will never really be
Don't tell me about how it all will be bad in the endless nowhere nothing nobody end of it all-

I am a small person nearly at the end of my days
And it is all beyond me
What I know
And what I will be
I pray to G-d for-

Don't tell me please how old I am and how soon I will die
I know I am not on the way up to the stars at the moment
Let me please hear the quiet for a second
There is Beauty in the world and Goodness in some people
And much to live for
Especially the love of our own special few
Don't tell me all these bad things please
I am trying to do the best I can to the end
Let me do it quietly with as much kindness and care as I can
I know I am going soon
Let them say I lived my life in such a way
As to try with all my soul
To make others happy and blessed.