The Gift Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Right Gift.
When he was fifteen, a man, he had packed his bag
ready to join the merchant navy. His mother had two
parcels in her hands asked him to choose one and
not open it before he got old.
Since he liked to travel light he took the lightest packet
not bigger and heavier than letter, the other was
heavier and might have hidden a fortune.
Well he lived and loved and before he knew it was old,
opened the parcel, on a piece of paper was written
enjoy your life and embrace your elderliness.
His sister rang they had found this parcel amongst her
things with his name on it. Open it, he said. She did and
laughed, it was a brick, an ordinary house brick... How did
His mother knows he would choose the right present?