Righteo,
strap yourselves in,
SAM THE MAN’s done “twenty one”
Life
has start-ed and begun
even
though he’s still “pre-birth”.
“Pre-birth?”,
you say, “..I don’t see..”,
stubble’s
there upon his chin,
he
looks big enough to me,
that
no womb could hold him in.
When
he used
to
live
inside,
hidden
in his mummy’s tum;
his
father didn’t specially hide,
Sam
was too fragile
to
come.
Sometimes
he might hear a boom,
letting
him know who
he’d
meet
when
he came out of that womb-
to
grow up to walk the street.
Dad
saw him,
before Sam
could,
on
that ultra-sound-y thing,
and
he thought it would be good
to
see Sam with less between.
Sam’s
Dad didn’t push too much
to
get Sam out, to breathe air,
even
though then they could touch,
that
would not have been quite “fair”..
“fair”
is not prob’ly the word,
(when
Sam was a little boy,
he
was
very fair,
I’ve heard,
-hair
a “cockatoo of joy”!)
more
the thought is: “times
weren’t
right”
to
bring him out much before
his
birthday date, else tonight
would
be too late, and what’s more,
he
might
not
have been ready
to
come out, and to have cried,
if
we had not kept steady
and
then had prodded and pried.
On
the day Sam’s body changed
there
in Cowra hospital;
blood
system was re-arranged,
lungs
and gut started to fill,
and
he joined this bigger world
with
more pain, though pleasure too.
Flag
hoisted, to be unfurled
as
he passed life’s stages through.
Like
THE
MAN
-
The
Human One
who
was born here just like Sam
and
handled the pain & fun
of
this world, and learnt to stand..
..stand
for what is good and true
on
his two feet, and with friends.
Then
just hang around to do
what
is needful for good ends.
Sam,
your hero is mine too!
And
your life’s a parable.
I
am seeing him in you,
though
he’s incomparable!
Since
your Papa in heaven,
who’s
been helping me advance,
put
Life
in
you like leaven,
not
just mine,
you're Sam, THE
MAN's
*that’s
21 verses of 21 sylables - originally 15 verses of 28 sylables with
one verse
of 21 sylables at the start.