Daylight Savings Time for Poetry

We’re moving the clocks forward this weekend for Daylight Savings Time, several weeks earlier than usual. That prompted me to hunt for any time or clock-related poems I could find—of which there were several. Just for fun, here’s a classic Silverstein:


The Monkey
By Shel Silverstein

1 little monkey
Was goin’ 2 the store
When he saw a banana 3
He’d never climbed be 4.
By 5 o’clock that evenin’
He was 6 with a stomach ache
‘Cause 7 green bananas
Was what the monkey 8.

By 9 o’clock that evenin’
That monkey was quite ill,
So 10 we called the doctor
Who was 11 on the hill.
The doctor said, “You’re almost dead.
Don’t eat green bananas no more.”
The sick little monkey groaned and said,
“But that’s what I 1-2 the 3-4.”

From: Falling Up by Shel Silverstein

And believe it or not, there is even a poem for kids specifically about Daylight Savings Time, although the month for switching has now moved from April to March:

Daylight Savings Time

by Phyllis McGinley



In Spring when maple buds are red,

We turn the Clock an hour ahead;

Which means, each April that arrives,

We lose an hour 

Out of our lives.



Who cares? When Autumn birds in flocks

Fly southward, back we turn the Clocks,

And so regain a lovely thing--

That missing hour 

We lost last Spring.

From: The Random House Collection of Poetry for Children compiled by Jack Prelutsky

For more fun time-related poems, look for:
Lee Bennett Hopkins’ anthologies: It’s About Time or Marvelous Math (“Time Passes”) or Weather; Poems for All Seasons
Carol Diggory Shields’ Lunch Money And Other Poems About School (“Clock watching”)
Handsprings by Douglas Florian
It's About Time! by Florence Parry Heide, Roxanne Heide Pierce and Judith Heide Gilliland
First Morning: Poems About Time compiled by Nikki Siegen-Smith

More time for poetry!