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1. Langston Hughes'
Mother to Son
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

2. I had no time to hate because
by Emily Dickinson
I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.
Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

3. Nostalgia
by Billy Collins
Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow.
"
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.
Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage.
We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.
The 1790's will never come again.
Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

4. I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.
Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.
As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

5. The Moment
by Margaret Atwood
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.
No, they whisper.
You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

6. All the Worlds a Stage
by William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

7. You see I cannot see your lifetime by Emily Dickinson
You see I cannot see your lifetime
I must guess
How many times it ache for me today Confess
How many times for my far sake
The brave eyes film
But I guess guessing hurts
Mine got so dim!
Too vague the face
My own so patient covers
Too far the strength
My timidness enfolds
Haunting the Heart
Like her translated faces
Teasing the want
It only can suffice!

8. As Time Passes
As the secondspass...
We lookback...
Of whatour liveshave held...
As the minutespass...
We see whatfell throughthe cracks...
Parts of our liveswe withheld...
As the hourspass...
We thinkof whatwe learned...
What we have taught...
What we have forgot...
As the dayspass...
We wisha lotcouldbe returned...
We wishwe wouldof neverfought...
You hope theyforget-me not...
As yearspass...
You standalone...
Theyhave all grown...
Married andgone...
Or on theirown...
As yourlife passes...
You standproud...
Lookinghowwell theyraise theirown...
You didwell...
Live on...

9. Signs of the Times by Raymond A. Foss
Kairos time, not Chronos time;
how hard a concept, so easily missing.
We live in times with signs, like the times
they shared with You.
How could they not see the signs,
those people who claimed to be
set apart, a chosen people
the people of the word, the law,
the prophets. But they failed to see,
to act on the wisdom, the fulfillment,
the signs plain before their unseeing eyes.
We too are so comfortable, so lazy,
so timid. We fail to see the signs
of the end times, signs before us.
We are stuck in the tick tock of the clock,
the slow march of time. We fail to see,
to act in our time. We see only the day to day
not the imperative outside our doors.
Kairos time is here. We need to choose.
We must act, even if it splits father from son,
mother from daughter.
He knew that. So must we.

10. To Time by Lord Byron
Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.
To them be joy or rest on me
Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief
Retards, but never counts the hour.
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to Woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk and now thou art
A blank a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.
And I can smile to think how weak
Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak
Must fall upon a nameless stone.
“PoemsOn Time
The butterfly countsnot months but moments,
and has time enough.
Time is a wealth of change,
but the clock in its parody makesit mere change and no wealth.
Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time
like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
― Rabindranath Tagore