TALKING TO ONE'S SON

Poem for Today - January 27, 2013

WHAT SHALL HE  

TELL THAT SON?

A father sees a son nearing manhood.

What shall he tell that son?

“Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.”

And this might stand him for the storms

          and serve him for humdrum and monotony

          and guide him amid sudden betrayals

          and tighten him for sIack moments.

“Life is soft loam; be gentle; go easy.”

And this too might serve him.

Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.

The growth of a frail flower in a path up

          has sometimes shattered and split a rock.

A tough will counts. So does desire.

So does a rich soft wanting.

Without rich wanting nothing arrives.

Tell him too much money has killed men

          and left them dead years before burial:

          and quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs

          has twisted good enough men

          sometimes into dry thwarted worms.

Tell him time as a stuff call he wasted.

Tell him to be a fool every so often

          and to have no shame over having been a fool

          yet learning something out of every folly

          hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies

          thus arriving at intimate understanding

          of a world numbering many fools.

Tell him to be alone often and get at himself

          and above all tell himself no lies about himself,

          whatever the white Iies and protective fronts

          he may use amongst other people.

Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong

          and the final decisions are made in silent rooms. TeIl him to be different from other people

          if it comes natural and easy being different.

Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.

Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.

                   Then he may understand Shakespeare and

                   the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,

                   Michael Faraday and free imaginations

          bringing changes into a world resenting change.

                             He wilI be IoneIy enough

                             to have time for the work

                             he knows as his own

                                                     

©  Carl Sandburg

“What Shall He Tell That Son?” 

by Carl Sandburg: 

from The People, Yes

by Carl Sandburg.

36 by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.; renewed 1964 by Carl Sandburg. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.