Have expectations. Never get bored. Get experience. <br />Some of the things 'they' told me to do <br />in my stone kicking, apple stealing, string keeping time, <br />I'd listen to them and believe 'they'd' done it all. <br /> <br />So I crowded my days, as determinedly unbored a boy as ever you met. <br /> <br />Followed Hazard and his bony greyhounds for miles to see them run down a hare in the dew wet, see-your-breath, fields - which they never. <br /> <br />Kissed Lorraine against the chestnut tree in the back field until we went blue - afraid to quit - and my tea sitting ready on the table. <br /> <br />Learned Latin, while Summer hedges frothed with life and rivers rippled with fish; algebra, when bonfires needed built; science, when only I needed to experiment. <br /> <br />Ran 'thank you' messages for neighbours to the bookie's. Saw old men expect Heaven from a two bob double and still laugh when hope and money evaporated. <br /> <br />Watched farmers with dull razorblades castrate baby pigs and pretend I wasn't near to vomiting. <br /> <br />Defended sisters except when their foes had bigger brothers; they'd call, and call, but I could not answer. <br /> <br />Said prayers. Gave pennies for black babies one Lenten week - white the next. Kept a copper now and then and felt guilty - 'til I'd spent it. <br /> <br />Couldn't understand, but wouldn't say, how Jesus could be born at Christmas, dead by Easter and miracled and parabled the time between. <br /> <br />Read everything with writing on; , <br />garish paperbacks Mum said weren't really Dad's - he was minding them for a friend. <br /> <br />All that, and tried so hard never to be bored- and it worked, <br />most of the bloody time.<br /><br />James Mills<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/just-a-boy/
