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This poem moved me and helped me and maybe it will move you and help you too. Thats all. Happy New Year.
A House Called Tomorrow
Alberto Rios
You are not
fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries
And fifteen,
bringing with you
In every breath and in every step
Everyone who has
come before you,
All the yous that you have been,
The mothers of
your mother,
The fathers of your father.
If someone in your
family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:
The bad do not
win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.
We simply would
not be here
If that were so.
You are made,
fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.
You are the
breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward
Through it all,
even if so many days
Feel otherwise. But think:
When you as a
child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—
It’s that, from
the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.
From those
centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,
The river bridges
and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:
That we can make a
house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,
Is
ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.
Look back only for
as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.
Be good, then
better. Write books. Cure disease.
Make us proud. Make yourself proud.
And those who came
before you? When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.
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