Ignorance

If ignorance be bliss
where would one ever find misery on earth?
I think this as I dig into
my breakfast stack of incongruities.
The vaccine for ignorance, so I’ve been told,
is knowledge.
I should know ––
I was inoculated
for twelve years of misery and five.
And here is what I have found out:
Knowledge is like recycled air
inhaled and exhaled from lung to lung
It can neither be trapped nor shaped
unless bottled up
but keeping it to yourself
will turn it toxic
and blow it up in your face.
Trace elements you may absorb
they may even become you, for a while
but in the end they must return
to the vast vacuum of ignorance whence they came,
for, like escaped air, lost knowledge
leaves no trace behind.