Seventeen
How does it feel to be seventeen?
Oh, not much different than what it has been.
So you don’t feel older, perhaps more mature?
I feel like a wiser fool, that’s for sure.
A wiser fool? That doesn’t make sense.
Depends on your view – present or past tense.
Oh, never mind, but surely you feel glad?
In a way that’s resigned enough to be sad.
You are very strange . . . but think – a clean slate!
It’s good but too soon; it’s bad but too late.
Seventeen is better than sixteen by far.
As much as the sun is more than a star.
You have more experience! Life is more clear.
There’s just as much clouds as sun in a year.
Why aren’t you more cheerful? You’ve conquered your troubles!
I am not uncheerful, just not full of bubbles.
But why? Why not take the chance – be ecstatic?
Then I would have to call myself a fanatic.
There has to be something really wrong with you.
I prefer happiness that is true,
And sorrow unhindered by the obligation
To paint on my smiles and fake my elation.
You see, I am glad to be seventeen
But I’m also sad that all I have been
For a whole past year is now quite behind,
And no matter how I look I’ll never find
More than the shreds of me in the past.
I wish that my sixteenth year could have last-
ed just a bit longer. I don’t want to grow
Because growing older also means to go
Away from your childhood into a new realm
Where reason, not wonder, is guiding the helm
And steering your course to stars that all lie
Upon the horizon, not up in the sky.
So, yes, it is nice to be seventeen,
But I’m looking through tears at the person I’ve been.