babee tales

Some thoughts from Daddy for nat and didi when they grow up :)

'If' by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

'Your secret life' by Harry Ricketts

I can see it all already:
sitting up long after the kiwi
and the cat have gone to bed
to do whatever it is they do
when the screen scrambles to noisy snow.

I'll hear you shut the front door
with a soft click that makes me jump-
just time to fix a welcoming smile
before you bound into the kitchen (perhaps
for a drink) blooming with your secret life.

What shall we say? Will I blurt out
"Do you know what time it is?"
angry with relief that you're home
at last and apparently unharmed
from that film, that party, that lover?

Would that be better or more likely
than a "Had a nice time, sweetheart?"
poured out with an oh-so-casual cup of tea?
"Sorry, Dad." "Yes, Dad." Not now, not soon,
but sometime it will happen.