Four-thousand years or more you’ve lived

I wonder what you have seen.

Thousands of generations of

The creatures that have been.

Did you see the mastodons

Roaming across the plains below?

Did you see the saber cats

Catching their prey in the snow?

And speaking of the white stuff

Did you witness an ice age or two?

Oh if only trees could talk

The questions we could ask you.

But would you even answer

Would you answer when you’re bidden?

Or must you always be a watcher

While your secrets remain hidden?

Would you tell of time long past?

Would you tell of long ago?

Would you give us any wisdom?

Would you tell us how to go?

Would you tell us of your maker?

Would you tell us about life?

Would you tell us how to live?

Would you tell us of your strife?

These are questions we would ask of you

Their answers we would know.

Even though we ask in futility

For most wisdom we do throw.

Away with all the rubbish

For wisdom has no hold on us.

Even though we ask for it

Following wisdom is too much fuss.

So when it comes right down to it

It is good that you are mute.

Your stature and your wisdom

Are silently resolute.

For you know that we would squander

Any wisdom that you’d give.

Even though four-thousand years’ worth

Is wisdom that would help us live.