MY REAL ESTATE

     Had Dad not died at fifty-seven but
     Were still alive and in his nineties now,
     I wonder how things would be different, what
     Settlement we might have made somehow.
    
     He’d always wanted me to join with him
     In appraising and acquiring real estate,
     But I was moved by what he thought a whim:
     I liked to study, read and contemplate.

     My yen for literature and poetry,
     Philosophy and speculative pursuits,
     Though nascent in my youth, emboldened me
     To enter an estate with different fruits,

          An orchard rather than a barren plot,
          A place to grow and sanctify my lot.

*