Poetry Friday - Pushing the Clouds Away

Wow. It's Friday again already and I haven't posted anything this week. Well, it is what it is. :-)

It's 1978. Hormones rage and all roads are ahead and open. My 19 year old self picks up a book by Rod McKuen, considered saccharine by many, but I like him. One poem in particular touched me at the time. It's funny looking at it again, thirty years later, and from such a different perspective.

Pushing the Clouds Away
by Rod McKuen,

Clouds are not the cheeks of angels, you know
They’re only clouds.
Friendly sometimes, but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms I’d push the clouds away
or I’d make them hang above the water
somewhere else,

But I’m just a man who needs and wants,
mostly things he’ll never have.
Looking for that thing thats hardest to find:
himself.

I’ve been going a long time now
along the way I’ve learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself,
take the little times and make them big times,
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren’t so good.
I’ve never been able to push
the clouds away by myself.
Help me.
Please?

Poetry Friday - To Laugh Often and Much

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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(Not sure if this qualifies as a poem, and it's debatable as to whether it originates with Emerson, though it is most often attributed to him, but this is my absolute favorite bit of verse. It's been hanging on my wall for years. -- Fred)