To Be a Man

A child is a child even when he is a man, A man in a child is a man as a child. To be a man refracts though age, What necessity has forged and made. What wisdom may come to the ones that heed, What wisdom is lost to the ones that are naïve. To be stripped of innocence and be left bare to the world, To be a child and not be a child is a hell of its own. To be a man as a child duty is above all else, But within that shadow resent lingers within the depths of the heart. The time lost never again will be recovered, The fierce soul we never again be completely soothed. Yet between the madness of having lost and gained, Serenity comes to play a game. The child no longer a child understands he is a man, Though to the blind eyes of the world he remains a child, But he knows and we know that he has understood. That to be a man is to understand that the world can be cruel, But to subdue to is wishes is to be an utter fool.