<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 19.2pt; position: static; z-index: auto; ">To My Favorite Seventeen Year-Old High School Girl</p><p style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 19.2pt; position: static; z-index: auto; ">Do you realize that if you had started</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; position: static; z-index: auto; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">building the Parthenon, on the day you were born<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">you would be all done in only one more year?<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">Of course, you couldn’t have done that alone,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">so never mind, you’re fine just as you are.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">You’re a love for simply being yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; position: static; z-index: auto; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">But did you know that, at your age Judy Garland<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">was pulling down $150,000 per picture,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">Joan of Arc was leading the French army to victory,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">and Blase Pascal had cleaned up his room?<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">No, wait, I mean he had invented the calculator.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; position: static; z-index: auto; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">Of course, there will be time for all that later in your life<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">after you come out of your room<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">and begin to blossom, or, at least, pick up all your socks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">For some reason, I keep remembering that Lady Jane Grey<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">was Queen of England when she was only fifteen,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">but then she was beheaded, so never mind her as a role model.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">A few centuries later, when he was your age,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">Franz Schubert was doing the dishes for his family<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">but that did not keep him from composing two symphonies,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">four operas, and two complete masses as a youngster.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">But of course that was in Austria at the height<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">of romantic lyricism, not here in the suburbs of Cleveland.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; word-spacing: 0px; margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-left: 0in; widows: 1; line-height: 19.2pt; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">Frankly, who cares if Annie Oakley was a crack shot at 15<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">or Maria Callas debuted as Tosca at 17?<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">We think you are special by just being you,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">playing with your food and staring into space.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">By the way, I lied about Schubert doing the dishes,<br style="box-sizing: border-box; ">but that doesn’t mean he<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; ">never</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>helped out around the house.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>- Billy Collins</o:p></p></body></html>