Some Thoughts For Benson Green On His 27th Birthday

This is one of the very few poems I ever memorized

Some Thoughts for Benson Green on his 27th Birthday

Having just gone through the year myself

I know that twenty-seven can be hard.

But there are Sunday breakfasts

     and April fields

          and blue on blue

              and green growing things

to change all that.

I know that spring is hard because you wait for summer

and fall is hardest of them all

     because you must not be alone

         when winter comes.

I know

     that love is worth the time it takes to find.

Think of that

    when all the world seems made of walk-up rooms

          and hands in empty pockets.

I know your smile

     and it is much too warm to waste on people in the street

                      (though smiles are plentiful)

and I know

     that if you keep the empty heart alive a little longer

          love will come.

                  It always does,

maybe just at the last moment, 

     but it will come    

         

You must believe that

     or there isn’t any reason to be twenty-seven.

                    - Rod McKuen