It’s Our Choice

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It’s Our Choice

They say they don’t
want us to hate
and fight, they
make rules that gag,
to make sure
we’re polite, ’cause
“we’re irresponsible”.

And yet they stand
on podiums and
say what they want,
inflammatory words
meant to ignite, so
that we’ll bicker and
get lost in their fight.

Hypocrites they are,
the ones with their
double speak,
their goal is our ire,
they like to see us
fighting each other,
burning in their fire.

Let’s not.

It’s Our Choice is an excerpt from Humanity’s Lament: Poetry for Our Times

WinterWalk

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This haiku was written as a submission for Week 4 of Alegria de Rose’s Writing Winter’s Breath. If you’re on Substack and would like to join in, find the invitation here: https://alegriaderose.substack.com/p/week-4-invitation-writing-winters

haiku WinterWalk / © Susan L Hart 2026

Arrival

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I am summer born,
snow feels alien to me –
For trees maybe too?
I watch how bravely
they surrender to autumn,
bittersweet adieu.
November’s exposed,
bare branches sway in bitter
winds boding winter.
But gently it starts,
it sneaks up, surprises with
snowflakes so softly
painting such magic,
no more can I mourn leaves, or
the way I saw trees.

Arrival © Susan L Hart 2026

The Time of Our Lives

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“Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.” are the profound last lines of the poem, Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day, by Delmore Schwartz. It’s a beautiful philosophical contemplation of the passage of time, with a particularly great wrap-up last stanza.

The seconds, minutes, hours tick away relentlessly. Our lives are busy, and inundated with many distractions and responsibilities. Lately I’m looking at my age and thinking, “Wow! It’s going faster than I ever imagined at age 18.”

Realistically, we don’t have time to sit around and endlessly ponder about the value of time and our lives. But, it’s useful to carve out a little time (from time to time) for such introspection. Because your life IS precious, and the clock IS ticking. Ask yourself in this moment, are you spending your life the way you really desire to?

It is crucially important to have vision and intention for our lives. Otherwise, we will just end up with someone else’s idea of how life should be.

Inspirational Time Quotes:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” ~ Mark Twain

“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time.” ~ Marie Lu

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.” ~ Roy T. Bennett

“All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.” ~ Mitch Albom

Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best for 2026. 🙂

© Susan L Hart, 2026 / SusanLHart.com

All I Want for Christmas

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All I want for Christmas is World Peace. Well not really, but Santa dear, that’s the big present I want. I also want more Love, Joy, Beauty, Adventure, Abundance, and Celebration. My list is even longer than that, if you have the time to read it. No, I’m not a greedy girl, Santa! I want all of these things for everybody. But what I really want this year, most of all, is World Peace. Can you please bring it to me this year? Can you? Can you?

Santa (trying valiantly not to roll his eyes) scolds me, “Every year you ALL talk about it at Christmas time. Peace On Earth! Pshaw! As long as I’ve been in the biz, people have been asking for it. You’re nothing new. Why should I especially grant you such a wish? You are just one in billions!”

Then Santa asks me to lean in so he can whisper in my ear, and he tells me a secret. We can’t just ask or wish for World Peace to appear under the tree. It’s not something that some company manufactures and we can buy it with money. And he hates to admit it to me (shh!), but even he cannot deliver it! We actually have to claim it, and create it together. We have to choose leaders who are on our side, and if they’re not, they are out on their ears! We also have to make peace for ourselves, with ourselves, with family we may not get along with, with our neighbors, and on it goes… Mending fences, making peace. Peace rippling outward until it becomes a gargantuan wave rolling around an increasingly beautiful world that WE create!

Sounds too simple, right? Not really. Waves of thought can change things in extraordinary ways in a nano second.

So I ask you, will we ALL choose World Peace for 2026? I don’t know about you, but it’s all I really want this Christmas.

Please help yourself to a gift copy of my angel story for preschoolers. The download link is here.

Please help yourself to my my ebooklet “Manifesting Change Thru Love”. The download link is here.

All I Want for Christmas © Susan L Hart 2025

I wish you all the joy your heart can hold, now and going into 2026. Thank you for reading!