If
BY KAREN JO SHAPIRO
With apologies to Rudyard Kipling (“If”)
If you can’t wait to pick a book right now
And read it through until the very end
To find out who did what, and why, and how,
Then—lucky you!—you’re a READER, my friend!
Karen Jo Shapiro, “If” from I Must Go Down to the Beach Again. Copyright © 2007 by Karen Jo Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of Charlesbridge.
Source: I Must Go Down to the Beach Again and Other Poems (Charlesbridge, 2007)