My Own Day (Monday Poem)

 by Jean Little

When I opened my eyes this morning,

The day belonged to me.

The sky was mine and the sun,

And my feet got up dancing.

The marmalade was mine and the squares of sidewalk

And all the birds in the trees.

So I stood and I considered

Stopping the world right there,

Making today go on and on forever.

But I decided not to.

I let the world spin on and I went to school.

I almost did it, but then, I said to myself,

"Who knows what you might be missing tomorrow?"

 

 

from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury, 

selected by Alice Low, 

Little, Brown and Company, 1991

Life Doesn't Frighten Me (Monday Poem)

 by Maya Angelou

Shadows on the wall

Noises down the hall

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking laud

Big ghosts in a cloud

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Mean old Mother Goose

Lions on the loose

They don't frighten me at all

Dragons breathing flame

On my counterpane

That doesn't frighten me at all.

I go boo

Make them shoo

I make fun

Way they run

I won't cry

So they fly

I just smile

They go wild

Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Tough guys in a fight

All alone at night

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Panthers in the park

Strangers in the dark

No, they don't frighten me at all.

 

That new classroom where

Boys all pull my hair

(Kissy little girls

With their hair in curls)

They don't frighten me at all.

 

Don't show me frogs and snakes

And listen for my scream

If I'm afraid at all

It's only in my dreams.

 

I've got a magic charm

That I keep up my sleeve,

I can walk the ocean floor

And never have to breathe.

 

Life doesn't frighten me at all

Not at all

Not at all.

Life doesn't frighten me al all.

 

 

from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou

Random House, 1994