My Old Poetry -- "The Time It Was"

     I am presently finishing a poetry unit with my 7th grade students.  It's been an interesting experience, particularly because some students are very adept at writing poetry, and others, naturally, have their best poetry writing years ahead of them.  I searched out some of my own poetry, from middle and high school, to share it with them and indulge myself in some nostalgia.  I found many from a project I was permitted to create in 7th grade, one my teacher encouraged because I was so interested in writing.  But the poem that stuck out to me the most was from when I was in 10th or 11th grade.  I don't recall if it was an assignment or just sentiment that produced it, but it encapsulates a viewpoint I'd held well before I wrote it--  even though it reads like a life-altering declaration.  If I remember correctly, it was mostly inspired by seeing my peers do less than they could with the skills, talents, and opportunities in front of them.  It is called "The Time It Was" and, bear in mind, was written by someone with all the worldly experience of a 15 year old. 

The Time It Was

It was today when I was walking
That I heard two people talking
Of chances missed and love gone by,
And how their past had gone awry.

It was tomorrow, this got me thinking
That through life I had been slinking.
Taking not a chance and grasping not a string,
Finding not a love and planning not a thing.

It was yesterday I had been living
Without a thought to my future giving.
Living only day to day
Letting life pass me all the way.

It was now, I began deciding
From life's risks I would stop hiding.
I made a plan to think ahead
And stopped living like I was dead.

It was never when I was regretting,
Resolving that now I would start letting
Myself do a thing never previously thought,
And seeing the changes to my life it had wrought.

It was since then I have been seeing
Today and tomorrow-- and stopped fleeing.
I now plan to chance and chance to plan
And for it I am a better man.