Here's a bit of poetry I wrote in about twenty minutes while my kids were eating lunch. Hope you enjoy! Or not, because it's not the most cheerful thing in the world. I'm just hoping you'll consider it for a little while.
Scales
of Time
 |
| Image courtesy of Tactician/ DeviantArt.com |
Seconds
stretch on, seemingly to infinity
as you
await the dreaded news, clinging to hope.
You
feel the shadow of death lurking about you
as your
own mortality becomes a stark reality.
Days
fly by in a whirlwind, blending
one into
the other as the joys of a life
fulfilled
elevate you above the clouds
and you
feel, for the moment, invincible.
Weeks
drift into months, months to years
and part
of you wonders where it all goes.
The
limitless possibilities the once lay before you
dwindle
bit by bit, so you reflect on the good things.
Then a
century has passed, in which generations
rose and
fell, each with their own joys and sorrows.
Some
continue and with memories of you, but that
will also
turn to ash as time marches relentlessly on.
Centuries
turn into millennia as the drumbeat of
the universe
keeps on, marking the rise and fall
of entire
civilizations now, heedless of how many lives
have crumbled
beneath its heavy, uncaring feet.
Epochs
have passed us by now, and no one even
recalls
much of the species from whence you came,
never mind
the choices you once made with such care
and
deliberation, for they were everything to you.
The
steady beat of time will wear away all you know
and will
ever know until it is dust, such is the harsh
reality
of it all, regardless of your feelings about it,
or any
protests you may launch on your behalf.
Yet,
if anything, this is not cause for despair.
Odds
to the contrary, for you are the result of
countless
choices made by your ancestors before,
you are
here now, and thus can make the best of it.
Live
for now, do what you can to make life better
for
those around you, for though it will all turn to dust
that will
never obliterate the fact the you were once here
and in
spite of some rough patches along the way,
you were happy.
I have an upcoming blog post with a similar theme. Sort of. Yours ends on a more optimistic note, I think. Well done. :-)
ReplyDeleteNicely done. I didn't think it was depressing -- your last couple of verses were quite upbeat.
ReplyDeleteAll our lives are transient and finite, as is every aspect of the universe around us. People, places, planets, stars, galaxies, and perhaps even the universe itself -- they all have a life cycle. They all are here and then gone. It's simply part of the rhythm of the the universe.
"Good health" is really just "dying at the slowest possible rate," for each of us are on that inevitable path. But it is a path that is also filled with wonder and joy and opportunity and the amazing ability to touch the lives of those around us; to love and to be loved; to remember and to be remember.
I choose to believe that just because life is short does not make it meaningless, and that just because death is inevitable does not make it the end.
It was certainly thought-provoking, but I agree that it ended on an uplifting note. We should make the most of what we have now, not waste it, because it's all we have in the end.
ReplyDelete