The Struggles Of Life Poem by Richard Burke

'My life is miserable, '
Sighed a daughter to her dad;
'Each problem that gets solved,
Brings another just as bad! '

He called her to the kitchen,
(He was a chef by trade) ,
And said life lessons could be learned,
From three dishes that he made.

He put potatoes, eggs and coffee grounds,
In separate pots of water;
After boiling them for twenty minutes,
He asked his skeptical daughter:

Three items lie before you,
What do you think you see?
'Just potatoes, eggs and coffee, '
She answered listlessly.

The potatoes and the eggs,
He put in separate bowls to cool,
Then poured the coffee in a cup,
And sat his daughter on a stool.

Now squeeze the potato,
And tell me what you feel;
She held it in her hand and said,
'It's soft and easy now to peel.'


Now take the egg and crack it,
The broken shell discard,
And tell me how the egg now feels,
She answered 'Smooth but hard'

Now he handed her the coffee
And asked her to take sips;
Its flavorful aroma,
Brought a smile to her lips.

'Dad, what does this mean? '
Here's what he told his daughter:
Three foods encountered adversity,
Twenty minutes in boiling water.

The egg's inside once soft turned hard,
The hard potato now soft as paste,
But coffee created something new,
By transforming the water's taste.

Life is full of experiences,
Some are bad and some are good,
It's up to us how we react;
And now she understood:

That life is about converting,
The struggles that we face,
Into something that's positive,
Letting good the bad replace.

A poetic rendering of a moral tale in 'English for Students'