Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Wall Street to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
A penny in the morning, and a penny more by noon,
And the pennies start to gather like the stars around the moon.
My teacher drew a snowball rolling slowly down a hill,
It was tiny at the top of it but growing larger still.
That's interest on the interest, she said, tapping on the board,
It's the quiet kind of magic that the patient can afford.
The hurried want a fortune by the setting of the sun,
But the snowball needs a winter and a hill for it to run.
So I planted every dollar like a farmer plants his rows,
And I let the seasons do the work that only waiting knows.
Now my snowball is a mountain and my pennies are a sea,
And the magic that was quiet has been working all for me.
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Commentary
A classroom lesson about a growing snowball explains the quiet power of interest that earns interest.
Pennies “start to gather like the stars around the moon.” A teacher draws “a snowball rolling slowly down a hill,” tiny at first “but growing larger still,” and calls it “interest on the interest,” a “quiet kind of magic that the patient can afford.”
“The hurried want a fortune by the setting of the sun,” but the snowball “needs a winter and a hill.” The speaker plants “every dollar like a farmer plants his rows,” and years later “my snowball is a mountain and my pennies are a sea.”