Letter to a Child
By John Herlihy

Dear son,
My treasured one.
The world is what it is;
It is not going to change.
Human nature is what it is;
It cannot be rearranged.
When you come of age,
The days will turn page by page.
It is up to you what can happen,
Who you want to be, just imagine.

Be yourself and no other;
Be kindness to your brother;
Be a pauper with hidden riches;
Be a magician to fool horrid witches;
Be a wanderer with no fixed abode;
Be a journeyer down life’s troubled road;
Be the legacy of yesterday;
Be the promise of tomorrow.

Be a child within the man;
Be the achiever of God’s plan;
Be answer to the question;
Be virtue to any suggestion;
Be light in the darkness;
Be courage among the heartless;
Be a miracle of nature;
Be a tree in stature.

Be the secret of desire;
Be the watchman on hire;
Be reason in the mind;
Be emotion in the heart;
Be enemy of the seven deadly sins;
Be the cure in life’s medicines;
Be the wind that shatters;
Be the soul that matters.

The world is what it is;
You cannot change what happens.
Human nature must express what it is;
Just be what life fashions,
A star, a glowing star from afar,
A star within a galaxy of stars.
You are who you are;
There can be no other.
Signed none other,
Your loving father.