| GAELIC BLESSING May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face And the rain fall soft upon your fields; And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand. |
| MORNING All in the town were still alseep, When the sun came up with a shout and a leap. In the lonely streets unseen by a man, A little dog danced, And the day began. PARODY: AFTER SHAKESPEARE �Study and study� is easily said. Believe me, friends. �Tis now the very cramming time of night, When students yawn and fear itself comes out, Contagious to this world. Now could I drink hot coffee, As I do this bitter business the night Would quake to look on. Exams!! Now to my books. O brain lose not thy knowledge, let not ever The role of zero enter this term. Let me do better, not as usual. I will make cheatsheets, but use none My mind and pen in thsi be hypocrites, How in the world can this ever be learnt, To study in advance never, my cerebrun, consent!! WHAT WILL YOU BE?? They nver stop asking me, �What will you be?? A doctor, a dancer, A driver at sea??� They never stop bugging me, �What will you be??� As if they expect me, To stop being me. When I grow up I�m going to be a sneeze, And sprinkle germs on all my enemies. When I grow up I�m going to be a toad, And dump on silly questions in the road. When I grow up, I�m going to be a child. I�ll play the whole darn day and drive them wild. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL Thriteen�s no age at all. Thriteen is nothing. It is not wit, or powder on the face, Or Wednesday matinee, or misses� clothing, or intellect, or grace. Twelve has its tribal customs. But thirteen Is neither boys in battered cars nor dolls. Not Sara Crewe or movie magazine, Or pennants on the walls. Thriteen keeps diaries and tropical fish (A month, at most), scorns jumpropes in the spring, Cold not, would fortune grant it, name its wish; Wants nothing, everything; Has secrets from itself, friends it despises; Admits none of the terrors that it feels; Owns a half a hundred masks but do disgueses; And walks upon its heels. |
| Thriteen�s anomalous - not that, not this: Not folded bud, or wave that laps a shore, Or moth proverbial from the chrysalis. It is the one age defeats the metaphor. It is not a town, like childhoo, strongly walled but easily surrounded, in no city. Nor, quitted once, can it be qutie recalled - Not even with pity. |