Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
        vacation with pay. Want more
        of everything ready-made. Be afraid
        to know your neighbours and to die.
        And you will have a window in your head.
        Not even your future will be a mystery
        any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
        and shut away in a little drawer.
        When they want you to buy something
        they will call you. When they want you
        to die for profit they will let you know.
        So, friends, every day do something
        that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
        Love the world. Work for nothing.
        Take all that you have and be poor.
        Love someone who does not deserve it.
        Denounce the government and embrace
        the flag. Hope to live in that free
        republic for which it stands.
        Give your approval to all you cannot
        understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
        has not encountered he has not destroyed.
        Ask the questions that have no answers.
        Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
        Say that your main crop is the forest
        that you did not plant,
        that you will not live to harvest.
        Say that the leaves are harvested
        when they have rotted into the mold.
        Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
        Put your faith in the two inches of humus
        that will build under the trees
        every thousand years.
        Listen to carrion — put your ear
        close, and hear the faint chattering
        of the songs that are to come.
        Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
        Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
        though you have considered all the facts.
        So long as women do not go cheap
        for power, please women more than men.
        Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
        a woman satisfied to bear a child?
        Will this disturb the sleep
        of a woman near to giving birth?
        Go with your love to the fields.
        Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
        in her lap. Swear allegiance
        to what is nighest your thoughts.
        As soon as the generals and the politicos
        can predict the motions of your mind,
        lose it. Leave it as a sign
        to mark the false trail, the way
        you didn’t go. Be like the fox
        who makes more tracks than necessary,
        some in the wrong direction.
        Practice resurrection.