LIX - To a young lad, forty years past.

.

"Spring's Innocence" - Norman Lindsay.

Laura Jayne at Pictures, Poetry & Prose poses a daily writing challenge.
This poem is in response to the prompt "Write a letter to your young self.".


To a young lad, forty years past.

I who am ahead by forty years,
And write this peculiar rhyme,
Send you my words, in arrears,
Backward down through time.

I’ll not warn you what to eat
Or what paths your life should take;
Nor a word on lovers you may meet;
These are choices you will make.

But it’s attitude that makes the man,
So be kind to all you meet.
Use humour everywhere you can
And think before you speak.

How shall your life ahead unfold?
I know and yet I don’t, of course
Take heed of everything you’re told
But move on, without remorse.

O friend, known yet beyond my touch,
Sharer of my life and genes
I really cannot tell you much.
I am getting on; you are in your teens.

But since I can never take your place,
Nor lift you when you fall,
I send my love through time and space
To free you. You will have a ball.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery

---

It is structured on Flecker's poem "To a poet a thousand years hence".

Print this post