“Experience”

Experience

What is this thing?

Experience

Is it just a word, a name?

Experience

I only have a little

It comes with age

That’s the trick to its riddle

Its way

For when I was a boy

I wanted to travel

Yet I didn’t have any money

So I experienced the poor mans trek

This I have experience in

And would be able to tell another

How it works and how to begin

I know how to have a good marriage

Yet I shut up because I’ve never experienced it

At least not yet

And yes I’m sure my saying will change

Simply because I really don’t know how it works

For the lack of experience of this thing

My art gets better through my age

Only because I experience it more than my first day

Knowledge is only one thing in its self

Then understanding comes next in this field

Practicing the understanding

Putting it in play

One will have the experience of the thing

On what to do and what not to do

On when to apply and when to wait

And after this that we call experience

We come to wisdom

Where one has perfected

This experience thing

Ryan Brady O’Reilly

10/11/2001