In my heart sharply
these words are etched:
'you struggle as a writer
you are not quite yet'--

an exhortation, a reminder
so timely, so true, so appropriate
just a searcher, a sojourner, a learner
that I vow to take heed, never to forget--

does it matter at all
if I should fail to reach the gate
of the masters and the sages?
I have no cause ever to regret--

a few close fellow-travellers
at my dying hour would come near my bed
my simple happy epitaph I would leave them:
'  I am the dreamer you well knew--the writer 'not quite yet' '.