On this solemn occasion, allow me to offer another of my favorite poems by e.e. cummings.
you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you’re young,whatever life you wearit will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only lovewhose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off timethat you should ever think,may god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance