Seventeen is the cruelest year
A rubber band pulled taut
Full of what you don't have
And empty of all you want
That summer I caught an endless bus
To a tiny North Ontario town
Where my ancient grandparents
Gave me a room in their crumbling house
And left me free to roam around
The fields and the next-door graveyard
Where their son the priest was laid
Grandma spoke hardly a word but
Grandpa played his fiddle for me
Ardent tunes from his Irish youth
And asked me what I wanted to be
I lied to them and said a priest
When a poet was the truth
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