My Private Window to Knowledge

To Whom It May Concern:

Education is my private window to knowledge. Knowledge is the pathway that has broadened my horizons, and touched the four corners of the earth.

In my many accumulated birthdays, I have learned two very important lessons. The first: how much I don't know. The second: there is much power in listening, and, in order to achieve that power, we not only have to listen: we must learn to hear with minds and hearts.

Education has become an essential part of my golden years. it has stimulated my mind, body and spirit. It has challenged my imagination, by stirring my poetic ability to plant seeds for thought, not only for myself,but, hopefully, for others as well.

Education has become conducive to my curiosity in my search and journey into Capricorn. It has kept me alive and alert, wondering what awaits me around the corner, over the hill, and at the top of the mountain, It excites me in the race and chase toward the unknown at the end of the rainbow.

Education has stirred every emotion, to the point of my raining tears in the bittersweet world of poetry and pain, success and failure, joy and sadness, laughter and depression, happiness at its very best, war at its worst, to the moment of truce.

I have learned from my many journeys, experiences and adventures, and, very best of all, from a cross-section of cultures and peoples. I have been blessed with the ability to make life a little less difficult for others, with the stroke of a pen.

But, most of all, education, to me, means that I am able, through my writing to share with others the deliverance from out of the darkened shadows of ignorance.

-Joe Jelikovsky

Joe Jelikovsky is a poet, visionary, and member of the LAUSD Programs for Older Adults, "Tea and Tales" writer's group, Valley Village, CA. He'd love to read your comments.