0030 Your 'My Life' Exercise Book... Poem by Michael Shepherd

Buy a child's red-covered
'My Exercise Book'
like the one you bought
all those years ago
to build a bridge -
now you realise -
a warm reassuring bridge
between school and home
with its firm hand-rail
at both ends;
the river flowing so fast,
so powerful,
so beautiful
between those different banks
in the blank pages
of that book with its reassuring tables
on the back cover which speak of laws
which you may never read

then with the sharpened pencil
and the smell of cedar flakes
faling from the pencil-sharpener
sweet and haunting to your nose
and breathing heavier now
in this exciting, daunting task,
your head nearer the paper
than old schoolteachers would approve
and pencil gripped as firmly
as you would your life
write so carefully on the first white page
as if the beginning holds the whole story
intended but as yet unfurled,

'My Life'..