Fortune

Insolent fortune, toy not with me,
For I am the one who can toss you aside,
Like so many pebbles on a beach.
See the old man with his worry beads,
His worries grow like flowering seeds,
He mumblets and frets ever more each day,
His beads are not for me.
The spineless hermit sought solace,
He found it,
But his age does show one hundrefold,
I shy away from loneliness,
And growing prematurely old.
The saintly man is loved by all,
But the time for himself is undergrown,
His facets shrink until there is but one,
With a thousand voices, none his own.
Blest with knowledge the teacher feeds all men,
But I could never listen without wanting more.
A tiny part of what he knows is mine,
And he has less than those who have gone before.
So fortune, what have you in store for me?
I ask you this as I begin my quest,
But I despair when I am given nothing,
For you reply that there is nothing left.