To Myself When I Become 33

When you have lived three and thirty years
and find yourself more than twice as old
as I am now, ask yourself how well
you have moved on after my death
and how you have honoured my memory.

I hope this poem finds you
in the pink of health
and in the golden fire
of endless ambition.
Not that I can imagine it otherwise
but that I know these words will live.

Be sharp, be strong in many ways
and always in new ways.
Do not let them nail you to the cross,
that place is not for you.
Do not let the soldier pierce you
with destiny. Hold destiny fierce-
pierce with it.

If I run away to my own place
now sometimes, do not run again
with me in mind. I shall find you
while you are resting, hands behind head,
before you have reached the finish.
You will not reach the finish.
But I will see you from there
and tell you,
"Turn back and tell the others to hurry."
Lastly, I must tell you, I thought not long ago
that I had seen everything there was to see.

Tell me I was wrong.

it was deep. I hate to ruin the deep feeling, but how can you write this poem if you are dead??

Really enjoyed this. I'm not going to do a line-by-line right now because my brain is currently about as functional as a dead dog-- I'll try to come back later-- but you did a damn good job with a familiar concept. Some things, maybe, were too personal or impersonal to fully appreciate as a reader-- the race, the mentioned soldier-- but for the most part this felt like a very fitting will and testament for whatever part of a person, particularly a young person, that does not outlast the present.

Why 33, though? Out of idle curiosity.

if I say I did not enjoy this poem I will only be lying to myself it was beautiful and something I think every members of YWS can relate seeing that this place is packed up of youngsters. onces in a while every one fantazy of what he or she would be in the future and been able to draw out your fantasies in a poem is great.
Your use of death to describe your 16yrs is too hasrh please i would rather you use some thing more subtle. I truly enjoyed your poem

Firstly, 33 because that's the age at which Jesus was nailed to the cross and got himself pierced by the spear of destiny. It's also the age at which Hart Crane died.

Secondly, come on, let's face it, however much we say that the child in us will always live on, this much is for sure- something in us dies with every birthday. That something is the narrator of this poem. (Something is born too, but that's another story)

I'm glad you liked it. I just hope my 33 year old self will like it too and not write a long cynical poem titled, "To Myself When I Was 16." That would mean that all of me would be dead by then.

Cheerio,
Plant.