Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" is the classical expression of make hay while the sun shines — the carpe diem tradition organized around the urgency of the moment that will not remain; A poem about a dying parent might use make hay while the sun shines to describe the speaker's determination to be present in every remaining moment — the hay that must be gathered before the weather changes; In a poem about creative opportunity — the period of productive energy that will not last, the open afternoon that must be used before obligation returns — make hay while the sun shines is the practical instruction that philosophy reduces to metaphor; A poem about seasonal harvest — the literal making of hay, the actual work of bringing in what the summer has produced — might use the phrase to honor the agricultural wisdom behind its metaphorical application; In a political poem about a moment of genuine opportunity for change — the window briefly open before entrenched interests reassert themselves — make hay while the sun shines is the strategist's advice and the activist's urgency; The phrase suits poems about the relationship between weather and time, where the farmer's attentiveness to conditions is a model for the poet's own awareness of the moment — the sun that is shining now, the hay that will not gather itself