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There Was a Boy. . . .


There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea

 I had completely forgotten!

I had remembered Nat King Cole.
Remembering Nat King Cole is part of the furniture of my life; period furniture.
Yesterday I found a couple of CDs with his songs.
I had been looking for them.

"We have three," the clerk said,
and she led me to the table where they were,
flipping to the back of the display.

And today, driving home from the grocer's,
I heard what first I heard when I was in high school.
By almost anyone's reckoning, that was a while ago.

The first dozen songs, or so, came like something not quite forgotten,
but then Nat King Cole sang:  There was a boy!

 A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he
A magic day he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me
The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return

And I am eighty-four, long since from a boy.
As ever, I heard lyrics I have ever heard, and never learned,
not really, not quite:  A little shy and sad of eye. . . .

 But I have learned:

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.


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