{"id":9371,"date":"2021-05-17T15:25:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T19:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/05\/17\/commencement-poem-by-zachary-hughes-20\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T18:15:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T23:15:59","slug":"commencement-poem-by-zachary-hughes-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/commencement-poem-by-zachary-hughes-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement Poem by Zachary Hughes \u201920"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Student Commencement Poem<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Furman University<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Zachary Hughes \u201920<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>May 15, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Generation Clarified<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Picture yourself at 90<br \/>\nThe skin on your hands, once taut and elastic<br \/>\nHas gone loose and papery.<br \/>\nYou take minutes just to get in and out of bed.<br \/>\nYour fingers curl with the ache of arthritis,<br \/>\nThe hair falls fast from your head<\/p>\n<p>From where you sit, at 90, look back on this day.<br \/>\nMay, 15, 2021 \u2013 67 short years away.<\/p>\n<p>We may be the generation interrupted,<br \/>\nThe spring breakers who never came back.<br \/>\nBabies born at the millennium,<br \/>\nChildren raised in the era of terror,<br \/>\nStudents graduated into a pandemic.<br \/>\nWe could be the generation interrupted<br \/>\nOr choose to be the generation clarified.<\/p>\n<p>Children raised in the era of terror who refuse to be afraid,<br \/>\nStudents graduated into a time of constraints<br \/>\nWho refused to be dismayed,<br \/>\nWho refused to get downhearted,<br \/>\nWho went back to the drawing board when a virus dashed<br \/>\nAll the plans they had charted.<\/p>\n<p>We have a chance to live free of veneer,<br \/>\nTo steer our lives as captains of our souls<br \/>\nAnd chase goals bigger than just power, fame, and gold.<br \/>\nWe have 67 years \u2013<br \/>\nWhat will we do with our wild and precious lives?<br \/>\nWhat will you do?<\/p>\n<p>What will you pay attention to<br \/>\nIn this attention economy<br \/>\nAs ads, posts and next episodes<br \/>\nFight to give you a technological lobotomy.<\/p>\n<p>What will you choose,<br \/>\nKnowing that one day your life will end.<br \/>\nWhat triumphs will you tackle,<br \/>\nWhat wounds will you mend?<\/p>\n<p>Studying abroad in South Africa,<br \/>\nA bishop asked me,<br \/>\n\u201cWhat are the five most pressing issues facing the world right now?\u201d<br \/>\nWhat would <em>you <\/em>have said?<br \/>\nWhat list of five demands the attention<br \/>\nOf the sixty seven years you have before you wind up&#8230;<br \/>\nOld and wrinkly and 90.<\/p>\n<p>Look down at your hands.<br \/>\nYour skin is still elastic.<br \/>\nThink thoughts in your mind<br \/>\nWith neurons still plastic.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve had a strange year.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve been interrupted, in<br \/>\nBut let us be the generation<br \/>\nWith nothing but our complacency corrupted.<\/p>\n<p>Let us hop in the fountains,<br \/>\nAnd stop to smell the roses.<br \/>\nLet us dance at each other&#8217;s weddings with cake on our noses.<br \/>\nLet us hug our grandmothers and be so glad that we can.<br \/>\nWhen we encounter injustice, let us be the ones who take a stand,<br \/>\nWho take the stand to witness<br \/>\nIn hospitals, classrooms, courtrooms, and places of business \u2013<\/p>\n<p>That we appreciate the preciousness of life<br \/>\nBecause we were the class with a year to clarify \u2013<\/p>\n<p>We were the class pushed to an extra year of spring break<br \/>\nThen, we were the class to graduate brave enough to take chances<br \/>\nFor jobs, causes, and romances,<br \/>\nA class looking down the tunnel who chose to see the light<br \/>\nThe class to see 2020 as the year to get our vision &#8230; just right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Student Commencement Poem Furman University Zachary Hughes \u201920 May 15, 2021 &nbsp; Generation Clarified Picture yourself at 90 The skin on your hands, once taut and elastic Has gone loose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}