"A Fool's Errand?" by Stephanie Howe Sullivan

A fool, I contemplate tomorrow’s fate.

For future truth, I truly yearn to know.

I think, What if? And next, I speculate,

What then? Imagining: Why? and How so?

By thinking through each possibility,

Child’s play thereby extends my youth anew.

As in: When I grow up, What will I be?

Where shall I live? To Whom shall I be true?

Perhaps, it is a foolish errand run

As Culture pulls at me in different ways.

To be responsible is not so fun.

The choice is this: Remain a child who plays.

I find the love of self is not mature,

Which leaves adulthood more or less unsure.

Stephanie Howe Sullivan is an emerging poet in the MFA in Creative Writing in Poetry Program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, where she lives. She is a retired lawyer, seeking the better part of the fine art of living in pursuit of her passions—poetry being chief among them. Follow her at stephaniehowesullivan.com, on IG & Twitter @howeloween, and on FB @Stephanie Howe Sullivan Poetry & Prose.