© 1991 Michael S. Smith
© 1991 The Fellowship for readers of The Urantia Book
Michael S. Smith, 20, of Coraopolis, Pennsylvania offers this Young Readers’ page, inviting letters, writings, artwork, photography, etc. as well as the sharing of ideas, feelings, and experiences by pre-college and college age readers. Do you write stories or poetry? Do you read The Urantia Book in isolation? Do you know other young readers? Have you ever tried sharing The Urantia Book with your peers? If you have something to share on this page, send it to Michael S. Smith, 1827 Hassam Road, Coraopolis, PA 15108, Tel: (412)269-6693.
By Michael S. Smith
¶ 1
What am I? Who am I?
I am so much more and less than you would suppose,
I am a man, I am also the effeminate of soul,
I am the worker busy to gain his pay,
I am the slouch not wanting to toil for his wealth,
I am the one who wishes to be alone with his books,
But also the one to show himself to mankind by my serviceable wealth.
Not I the man of the world as yet,
My soul is too small, the world I cannot possess,
My fellow man I do not know,
His life I cannot grasp,
My own life I would not so much guess at the true reasons of my sometimes hypocritical spontaneous actions,
My purpose I do not see,
My effect I have not made.
I view things and at times become them,
People’s actions I may step into,
Other times I do not understand why such a path has been chosen,
My own better actions only stay as long as the inspiration,
My longings do not fit, for this I do not care,
In times of needed companionship I will reverse this view.
I long for God,
I long for living, for friendship, for love and understanding,
For a better humanity the world around,
For all to have the intelligence and spirit I might think I have separate,
For growth I long, my own soul to fly,
All souls to fly, yours and mine together, all misunderstanding to be gone.
Angels to talk with to show upon my shaded scene some light to inspire me,
Some light to inspire you,
The joys of a heaven to be found from one who has seen and felt the glory of God,
A voice I await, one that shall lead me,
Is it so wrong to wish to die?
No sign do we have to reveal what is truth,
No outward manifestation of the true power of God,
By faith we must live our beginning to final day,
Hoping not in vain our faith will make us whole.
My faith is strong,
My questioning is just that, nothing more,
No indwelling thought can erase this most bearable fęeling in the depths of my soul,
All may fall, my faith shall stand.
¶ 2
I would be the man of all seasons if I could,
To do all the things the world may offer,
All these things I could do,
With this pen and paper I could lead you, too,
But I can not go,
My words are stuck in introspection of myself,
In time I may bring us both,
This time is what I await,
The time my words may flow even more as these,
Though these flow the best as yet,
But my time has not arrived,
My purpose I have not uncovered,
Continually waiting, my life it flashes by.
Doubt not I say to you and I,
My time shall come to mystify us both,
With words of mankind my voice through these writings will spring,
The songs of all the world I will sing,
Of all occupations, travels, lands, and seas,
Of the mountains’ high peaks, the valleys’ streams and green flushing trees,
Of child and adult each pulled towards sides of evil and good,
Of all my mind can picture,
This these lines will reveal.
You will travel with me, my side never to leave,
So as I have stood with the masters through their own lines in books,
So you shall stand with me,
And the new poet I shall be,
You await me the wide world over as I await you,
And if my life shall be buried too soon,
In Paradise spheres my carol will sing,
Only there shall the songs of this earth be complete.
¶ 3
I see my coming out,
As the mollusk stretches outward the shell only to recede back again,
I see my steady growth into manhood,
Reaching always for consciousness that only the cosmo possesses,
I am young, ever growing,
Grasping to reach the peak, only to find the next step invisible,
I have started young on my quest,
I pray my early trials will the sooner pass from my life.
I know I will be great,
I know that you may also be great,
That we all can attain our highest, loftiest aspirations and ideals.
All my days I have seen tribulation,
And that much I have seen of joy,
The joy soon to outweigh the trials,
The leaves of grass soon to cover the dirt.
¶ 4
I show you these lines so that my future poems will have proved the fact of my search uncovered,
I will be, wait and see, the man you would love,
For love I give in return,
For now all we both may do is wait for truth to be revealed,
In time we both shall be not so blind as today.
My song I would not stop now,
I must recite how diligently I have searched;
For years I have read books of superstition, fear, to reverence and love,
I have loved the ones who recite of love,
And the revealer of a higher love they have given me to stretch out among you,
Through all I have read I discard what has not appealed to both you and I,
Always holding the joyfulness of love soon I will have pour out from me,
Of the true Jesus I have read and known,
The new revelation burns within my soul.
¶ 5
I sit and ponder you the reader of I,
I ask what it is that you have and have not found in my own searching,
But I say I expect all from you,
You say I am irrational; I say so too,
You say I am of true love; I say so too,
I am of all, for all I encompass,
Both evil and good I have been and have seen.
I am really not sure of myself as I am now,
Neither of the world and its multitude of peoples,
If you are I would like to know you,
For I would be your diligent pupil,
Of the future I sense that all will be my teacher,
And I the teacher to all.
How much I sit here in wonder of my own forward looking,
My thoughts of the poet and the man of the world,
I also wonder what you have thought of me,
And have I changed you?