Slow dance....the dance wont last

This is a poem is said to have been written by a teenager with cancer, a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. Regardless of the original source, it speaks to me, a challenge of living the moment that we so often forget.

S L O W D A N C E:
by Davic L. Weatherford

Have you ever watched kids
on a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Do you run through each day
On the fly
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
running through your head?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
‘Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?
You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….Thrown away…
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.