When does a boy become a man?
When does his childhood days end?
Is it eighteen, nineteen or twenty?
When does he turn round the bend?
It isn't his age or his stature
That changes a boy to a man.
It isn't his strength or his nature;
Or the race, and how well he ran.
It's how he treats those who love him,
And how he walks in the land.
Does he stoop to help those who've fallen...
And lift them with
eager
hands?
Does he dabble in things forbidden...
Knowing full well the end it may bring?
Does he count his riches in money...
Instead of more valuable things?
Can he be the one in the spotlight....
Yet enter the stage with head bowed?
Is he proud of what he's accomplished...
Yet humble to those less endowed?
When does a boy become a man?
When he learns the lessons above...
And puts them to use in his life,
And tempers them all with his love.By Carol Bouche' Ottlinger
copyright 1988
for grandson JoshuaHOME
