Greeting Words, Poetry for Graduation

Regardless of how many school and university graduations each person has behind them in life and how many lie ahead, each one concludes a significant stage of a person's life and marks a new one. It is significant for pupils and students alike, as well as for teachers and parents.

Graduation is a certain farewell to people with whom you have been together day by day for three, five, ten or even more years and whom you will scarcely meet so soon again. Every person who has been in our life always leaves their mark. We collaborate, work together, conflict and reconcile, we teach and learn, we enrich one another with both positive and, unfortunately, sometimes also negative experience.

Whatever the case, at a graduation we can allow ourselves sentiment, we can give in to nostalgia and romantic enthusiasm about the future. What better language is there to express all of this than poetry and music. Below I gather some verses that would be suited to this festive occasion.

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Flowers do not wish to bloom in vain. Flowers strive to justify their beauty - to nurture fruits, to ripen seeds - just as a person strives to fulfil the journey of their life.

/Lija Brīdaka/

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At the beginning of a path we are seized by fear; we want to do everything right. But life is ours only once - who then invented this "right". An example serves only for comparison, so that we can see how others understand life. We often admire others' journeys and just as often can learn from others' mistakes. But how to make one's own life better - that is each person's own concern.

/Paulo Coelho/

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Throughout the world people dream of happiness. Ancient fairy tales already tell of happiness-seekers. We wish happiness and we pour happiness. Yet each person has their own happiness, and it will not suit another - it cannot be tried on, cannot be given or lent, and once lost, it will be hard to regain. The most important thing to understand: happiness is feelings, not things. True happiness is coming into harmony with oneself.

/Lija Brīdaka/

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Sitting under one tree, we can imagine we are at the centre of the world, we can ignore what is happening all around, but we can also broaden our spiritual horizons and come to know even those processes that are rooted in the distances of the Universe. A person must strive both to sense the boundaries and to reach toward infinity. Rainis taught: working for others, develop your own strengths! That is an endless field of work and eternally new possibilities.

/Lija Brīdaka/

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Only that which you have loved,
Even when leaving, will not be lost.
Those brightest, best years
Are written in the heavens.

/Marta Bārbale/

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The past is a tree
That cannot be reached.
The future is a sprout
Just beginning to germinate.
The present is an apple tree
Beside you.
Take care that its branches
Bend heavy with fruit!

/Dzidra Rinkule-Zemzare/

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To know little and feel much -
That makes life colourful.
To know much and feel little -
That is great power in life.
But to know much and feel much -
That is God's gift, which cannot be lost.

/Jānis Poruks/

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Thread your dream through a sunbeam
Long, long
And say to yourself:
"I can do all!"

Cast your dream into fire,
Become a song in its flame
And say to yourself:
"Far I will go!"

Only do not let the dream freeze,
The dream, so resonant and white!
Without a dream there is no strength to live,
And a person without a path can perish in the cold.

/Gunta Micāne/

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Go, do not waver, the path has begun well,
Life will ask much of you.
Go, live all your life, learn all your life,
And all, all the time grow.