Wasted Boyhood

Well, I had wasted my boyhood, true,

But it was for you,

You had poets enough on the shelf,

I gave you myself!

Well, if my heart must break,

Dear love, for your sake,

It will break in music, I know;

Poets’ hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told

That the brain can hold

In a tiny ivory cell

God’s Heaven and Hell.

Poem to a Sad Son

To my boys:

You step delicately

into the wild world

and your real prize will be

the frantic search.

Want everything. If you break,

break going out – not in.

How you live your life I don’t care

but I’ll sell my arms for you,

hold your secrets for ever.

–  the Michael Ondaatje poem ‘To a Sad Daughter’