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.
I wrote this poem for the Week 1 prompt of Alegria’s “Writing Winter’s Breath”. Her link here on WordPress will lead you to the details, if you’d like to take part.
“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. 🙂
Eternal surprise, all the hellos and goodbyes, right there in your eyes.
The Trip
We arrive with no luggage and leave with none too, so why do we spend a lifetime accumulating mere things?
To prop up our egos, and relieve our boredom, to salve our hurts, and impress the neighbors.
Within the glorious potential of the soul’s quest, we lay waste to what could have been for the next new toy.
The kids fight over the treasures left behind by their parents, thinking that the having is some kind of victory.
But the wounds inflicted in the fight for more are baggage of a different kind, ones that can cross over if we don’t take care.
Traveling light and loving well are the real accomplishments, and as big as they are, they pack small for the leaving.
I will finish with a humorous note. Imagine if we could take our stuff with us, and then bring it back again in another life? What a mess that would be! We’d each need a locker in the in-between, and after our period of contemplation, claim our stuff to take back. *groan* There are so many permutations to this, I am weary just entertaining the thought. So many questions, so little time… Wishing you a wonderful day. 🙂
“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 