How It Works

1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

You are The Future

You are the future, the immense morning sky,
turning red over the prairies of eternity.
You are the rooster-crow after the night of time,
the dew, the early devotions, and the Daughter,
the Guest, the Ancient Mother, and Death.

You are the shape that changes its own shape,
the climbs out of fate, towering,
that which has never shouted for, and never mourned for,
and no more explored than a savage Wood.

You are the meaning deepest inside things,
that never reveals the secret of its owner.
And how you look depends on where we are:
from a boat, you are shore, from the shore a boat.

If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

The next Read-Around is 7/30/26 at
5:00 PM PDT — 8:00 PM EDT

My Thoughts

I see it in the young ones -they’re bright eyes roving in an endless future, yet to answer the question of what to be when grown-up. How eager they are to go, how ready to abandon themselves in play, how quick to jump for joy at the slightest delight. Barring illness, accident, or misfortune, they have a lifetime ahead of them. We elders look to the Young and say you are the future. They will after all, be the ones who inherit the world we elders leave behind. We can no longer take time for granted. Our attention turns  from pursuit and acquisition to embracing what we have and giving what we can. Perhaps the greatest gift of aging is recognizing the preciousness of time: that this moment is the doorway to all that is. That is the message I get from Ranier Maria Rilke’s poem, You Are the Future. All we need to become the future, are timeless eyes, abandoning ourselves in play, and we climb out of fate, back into life, undefined, unoccupied

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem about an experience that gave you a glint of something (like Kooser with a spider web) and it shifted you in a moment.

2. Journal or write a poem about breezes, whatever that might stir in you or bring to mind.

3. Write about spider silk and spider webs, literally or metaphirically.

4. Journal or write a poem about a simple synesthesia: hearing sounds in a pulsing light, seeing color in the hum of machinery, feeling the touch of frangrances on your fingertips

5. Write about a moment when a simple sight or sound grabbed your attention and something changed inside of you (uplifted your outlook, transformed your mood, opened your eyes to beauty)

6. Imagine you have been gifted a play day and you, like Kooser, get to be the one that plays it. Write about that day—what you might want in it not bucket list items for long-term dreams, just a little thing you'd want in a play daty

7. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you form the poem or from life.