The Thief Lord
Children are like caterpillars,
while adults are butterflies.
No butterfly ever remembers
what it felt like being a caterpillar.
But does that make an adult more beautiful,
Or does that mean adults are the result of their childhood?
Do you ever wish you were grown-up?
Just skip ahead and forget all that's in between.
Scipio had the stature of a child,
but could express himself like an adult.
He liked to act grown up,
even if he wasn't the oldest or the tallest.
Wouldn't it be easier to be teased by your teachers,
than acting grown-up when you're only twelve?
Would you ride the merry-go-round?
If it changed your life, took you where you want to go?
It makes adults out of children and children out of adults.
It can take you back or move you forward.
Prosper wanted to go back, to get back what was stolen from him.
But now he found playing with all this quite boring.
Scipio wanted to be grown-up.
How different dreams could be.
He wished that out there, on that island, there really was something
that could turn the small and weak into the big and strong.
Peter Pan was a boy, who was a boy forever.
Someone adults could push around and laugh at.
But what do adults do all day?
Work, eat, shop, pay bills, use the phone,
read newspapers, drink coffee, sleep...
Not all that exciting.
So which way is really better?
Growing up or going back to childhood?
You wouldn't want to miss everything in between,
but you wouldn't want to re-do your whole childhood again.
I don't think I would go back or forward.
Life's about the journey, not the destination.
Children are like caterpillars,
while adults are butterflies.
No butterfly ever remembers
what it felt like being a caterpillar.
But does that make an adult more beautiful,
Or does that mean adults are the result of their childhood?
Do you ever wish you were grown-up?
Just skip ahead and forget all that's in between.
Scipio had the stature of a child,
but could express himself like an adult.
He liked to act grown up,
even if he wasn't the oldest or the tallest.
Wouldn't it be easier to be teased by your teachers,
than acting grown-up when you're only twelve?
Would you ride the merry-go-round?
If it changed your life, took you where you want to go?
It makes adults out of children and children out of adults.
It can take you back or move you forward.
Prosper wanted to go back, to get back what was stolen from him.
But now he found playing with all this quite boring.
Scipio wanted to be grown-up.
How different dreams could be.
He wished that out there, on that island, there really was something
that could turn the small and weak into the big and strong.
Peter Pan was a boy, who was a boy forever.
Someone adults could push around and laugh at.
But what do adults do all day?
Work, eat, shop, pay bills, use the phone,
read newspapers, drink coffee, sleep...
Not all that exciting.
So which way is really better?
Growing up or going back to childhood?
You wouldn't want to miss everything in between,
but you wouldn't want to re-do your whole childhood again.
I don't think I would go back or forward.
Life's about the journey, not the destination.
I enjoyed your poem, Jenney. I especially liked your thoughts at the beginning. It brought to mind the famous line, "The child is father to the man." To get better adults, we need to provide better childhoods.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about one thing in your poem. Go back to page 271 in The Thief Lord. Don't you mean that Renzo, not Prosper, found playing with things of childhood quite boring?
I think Prosper made the same decision as you. He chose not to ride the merry-go-round.
I really like this poem! It describes the struggle that they were facing of choosing between being a child and a grown up. Everything was summed up in the last line, and it's really beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your poem! You selected some powerful pieces from the book and created a wonderful found poem. I especially liked how you incorporated the last line, that was the lesson I got out of reading "The Thief Lord".
ReplyDeleteThis is one the longest poems posted and that is an accomplishment in its own! You have a very creative mind and used the phrases from the thief lord wonderfully!
ReplyDelete