Take Time Out
Take Time Out - meaning Summary
Pause for Common Humanity
The poem urges readers to stop and notice marginalized people—hippies, soldiers, homeless women—and to question the violence, suffering, and indifference around them. Repeated imperatives, images of youth and addiction, and calls to feel sorrow and offer kindness insist that social harms are collective responsibilities. The closing lines link personal prejudice and neglect to the damage done to young people, demanding a communal moral pause and compassionate action.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen you see them on a freeway hitching rides wearing beads with packs by their sides you ought to ask What's all the warring and the jarring and the killing and the thrilling all about. Take Time Out. When you see him with a band around his head and an army surplus bunk that makes his bed you'd better ask What's all the beating and the cheating and the bleeding and the needing all about. Take Time Out. When you see her walking barefoot in the rain and you know she's tripping on a one-way trainon a one-way train you need to ask What's all the lying and the dying and the running and the gunning all about. Take Time Out. Use a minute feel some sorrow for the folks who think tomorrow is a place that they can call up on the phone. Take a month and show some kindness for the folks who thought that blindness was an illness that affected eyes alone. If you know that youth is dying on the run and my daughter trades dope stories with your son we'd better see what all our fearing and our jeering and our crying and our lying brought about. Take Time Out.
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