The little boy at the clothes-line

Reaching up to the sky

For the comfort of his blankie

Without it he would cry.

His sweet and silent wonderment

Would make his mother sigh;

But what with careful eagerness,

Did boy have in his eye?

A thinker was inside this boy,

His words though, kept at bay.

A rite of passage came for him,

Commencing time to play.

And soon this boy would enter school,

But still no words to say…

Lord knows he wasn’t ready yet.

To take upon the stage.

So he picked up a violin,

And tried to make a sound.

This quiet, shy, and earnest kid,

Was yearning to be found.

He thought he’d try a different way

With bats and balls and grass,

But something else was calling him,

The game that showed his class.

The ice became the love affair,

That set him on his way

This hockey life was calling him,

He played it every day.

And though his world was filled with fun

He struggled to make friends

Feeling just a little different,

Unable to pretend.

Then on a bus from out of town

A girl showed up at school,

Picked him out from the other boys

He thought that very cool.

He found it hard to tell her though

So he sent small love notes

Filled with the things he couldn’t say;

Those words stuck in this throat.

The more and more he wrote things down—

The clearer was his voice,

Expressing things straight from his heart

Became his tool of choice.

As he traversed life’s ups and downs

He’d realise now and then

He was reaching for that blanket

But should have grabbed his pen.

So now the boy becomes a man

Who’s filling up life’s page 

The safety is inside of him

He’s taken centre stage.