Parenthood

THE birches that dance on the top of the hill

Are so slender and young that they cannot keep still,

They bend and they nod at each whiff of a breeze,

For you see they are still just the children of trees.

But the birches below in the valley are older,

They are calmer and straighter and taller and colder.

Perhaps when we've grown up as solemn and grave,

We, too, will have children who do not behave!

John Chipman Farrar