A father sees a son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.' 
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum and monotony
and guide him amidtighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam;
And this too might serve him.
has sometimes shattered, and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
And left them dead years before burial:
The quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
Has twisted good enough men
Sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.

Tell him to be alonewhite lies and protective fronts
he may use amongst other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms 
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.
    Then he may understand Shakespeare
    and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
    Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing  into a world resenting change.changes
    He will be lonely enough
    to have time for the work
    he knows as his own.
        -From 'The People, Yes' Carl Sandburg

Langston Hughes'
Mother to Son

---

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
And turnin' corners,
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair

In Carl Sandburg's "A Father To His Son" "life is hard; be steel; be a rock" he is relating how life is difficult and his son must be like a rock. "The quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs has twisted good enough men sometimes into a dry thwarted worm" this is a metaphor teaching moral in which it is stating men can easily be bought and turn in the bad direction over money. "Tell him to be a fool every so often and to have no shame over having been a fool and to have no shame over having been a fool yet learning something out of every folly hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies thus arriving at intimate understanding of a world numbering many fools." in society many will criticize him for being different and trying to progress but it is that very reason that he should embrace progression and leave the skeptics behind because in reality they are the fools.

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© KREMLYS GUTIERREZ 2010