THIS TOO SHALL PASS

THIS TOO SHALL PASS

Danny Schmidt

Things change fast
But this too shall pass
Better carve it on your forehead
Or tattoo it on your ass
Cause who can tell
When the clock strikes twelve
If today’s become tomorrow
Or if it’s all just gone to hell

My friend makes rings
She swirls and sings
She’s a mystic in the sense
That she’s still mystified by things
But scared to ask
How can nothing last
Cause like a cancer in your body
It all just goes too fast

We think too big
We think our self is one whole thing
And we claim that this collection
Has a name and is a being
But deep inside
When every cell divides
It sets upon the rule that states
Self-interest is divine

Cancer, too
Lives by this golden rule
That you must do unto the others
As the others unto you
All for the best
Cause that’s all the life accepts
And so we kill it like a buffalo
With awe and with respect

Don’t ask God
Just ask the sky
She’ll tell it to you plainly
In the clouds that whisper by
And praise the shapes
And then praise the way they change
And they’ll teach you not to pray to light
Without you pray to rain

So I pray to hands
And I pray to needs
And I pray to blades of grass
To find forgiveness in the weeds
But as for health
I just never did believe
And so I never prayed myself
Except to those that prayed for me

The story goes
Or the way that I was told
There was a king that always felt too high
And then he fell too low
And so he called
All the wise men to the hall
And begged them for a gift
To end the rises and the falls

And here’s the thing
They came back with a ring
It was simple and was plainly
Unbefitting of a king
Engraved in black
It had no front or back
But there were words around the band that said
Just know: This Too Shall Pass