A father sees a son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.
and serve him for humdrum and monotony
and guide him amid sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.>
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
And left them dead years before burial:
The quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
Has twisted good enough men
Sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.

Tell him to be alone  often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use amongst other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is a born natural.
    Then he may understand Shakespeare
    and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
    Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
    He will be lonely enough
    to have time for the work
    he knows as his own.
        -From 'The People, Yes' Carl Sandburg

Langston Hughes'
Mother to Son

---

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

In the poem "A father to a son" by Carl Sandburg he uses metaphors to compare what life is like for son. He describes his son beginning to grow up and not knowing what to tell him when he reaches the right age of either not knowing what to do with his life or what to expect when he grows up. I feel he wants his son to be himself. He wants his son to be a great person a what ever it is he is good at. But he doesn't want him to stress himself out. Just to take life one day at a time. He uses metaphors to try to describe some of the things he can tell his son when he's older such as 'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.' which means if life's hard then he needs to be tough like steel or be a rock which means to be hard and can't be moved by no words. 'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.' is another metaphor he uses to describe how life can be, i feel he's saying life is slow and he shouldn't rush through life. He says to be gentle and go easy in life because life can pass you by if you don't just take your time to enjoy it.

In the poem "Mother to son" by Langston Hughes he uses an extended metaphor to describe life to a son from a mothers point of view. In the second line he uses the line "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" which basically explains that life hasn't been all nice and beautiful and what people understand it to be. He goes on to explain that the "crystal stair" was full of tacks and splinters which means that it's been a rough road up those stairs. But even though its been such a rough road that he shouldn't stop pushing. He should keep going regardless of the obstacles and no matter what you do you have to walk up those stairs. He describes life to be a hardship but no matter what happens he kept on pushing and he wants him to push forward.

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