Chisel not my name onto elegant stone, so you that I love might become slave to a time and place that no longer holds my soul, to which you could become tied, lost in sorrow and life’s limitations.
Rather, joyfully cast my dust to the wind, so I may dance on the breeze, and one day as the leaves rustle gently overhead, you will feel me there, riding a ray of sunshine kissing your face, and I’ll whisper in your ear, “Remember to live free.”
Happy
True, real, enduring, happiness is being at peace with who we are.
Your life is precious, so spend your moments wisely. Tick-tock, oops, they’re gone!
“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 ponderation on 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 the years that have passed, and thinking, “Wow! It’s going faster than I ever could have imagined when I was 18.”
Realistically, we don’t have time to sit around and ponder endlessly 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 it the way you would really like to? In reply to that, I will close with my poem Tick-tock Madman:
Tick-tock Madman
That round evil man with his shallow pretty face leers from my wall. Cruelly and incessantly, he chips away at my life with his sharp little pick-axe.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
My days mete out in an endless dribble of tasks and responsibilities, and he watches me. Be on time, get it right! Get up again, do it again. and again, and again, and again.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
I thought he was my friend that insidious little man, Mom said he was! Just dress for success, always be on time, and your life will be right.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Then one day I woke up and my life felt all wrong. Where are my dreams you cunning little man? You stole them while I toiled to your
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Oh poacher of my hours! Is there time for me? Still hope for me? The Me you took while I played by the rules, always obeying time.
And that smug little man with his false pretty face just stares coldly at me from his unfeeling wall. Silent he is, but for the relentless
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” ~ Walt Whitman (1819-1892) ~ Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855
Do you think the poetry of poets such as Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson is outdated, or are the concepts classic, and therefore never go out of style? They are the basics of life, and speak to the fundamental principles that humanity aspires to, over and over again.
Whitman speaks here (in a very eloquent way) of love, compassion, connectedness, humility, courage, determination, discernment, independence of thought, knowing and being true to one’s self.
If these principles have gone “out of style” at the moment, perhaps it’s time to bring them back…
More inspirational quotes by Walt Whitman:
“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”
“I am large, I contain multitudes”
“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”
“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
Life Is a Gift (Susan L Hart)
It’s a blue-sky day, one of those beauteous blue-full, joyously jocular, splendidly splashy, exceptional days – I long to shout LIFE IS A GIFT in unmistakable letters across the blue shiny yonder, to imprint them indelibly on your mind, so you’ll –
Remember when the dark clouds roll in, on a day when life feels pissy and oh so problematic, to take a deep breath, and close your eyes, and gently pull the gray gloom aside, to see those big oh so true words I etched on blue for you, so that you’d never forget –
Susan L Hart / Author 