How Time Flies
How Swiftly The Sands Slip Through
Grains scatter, displaced by the desert wind's breath,
Time's ceaseless march etching trails in the golden dunes.
Each particle a fleeting moment faced with death, Existing briefly ere replaced by new-formed runes.
In this vast ocean of shifting, shimmering earth
We play but transient roles upon its ever-changing stage.
From birth's first cry to the final gasp of worth, Humanity's drama unfurls - a cosmic cameo's ephemeral age.
How quickly those grains accumulate into years,
Relentless as ocean waves crashing to sandy shores. Joy, pain, triumph and heartache - the full gamut of human tears Rising, then ebbing like tides beneath time's bald, unfeeling oars.
As a child, that beach of life stretched seemingless before,
An eternity of sunrises waiting to be born. Now those hazy, youthful horizons are no more -
The hourglass almost empty, its grains of hope forlorn.
Where did those grains of years disappear to?
Lost in the onslaught of time, carried who knows where.
Piles of moments washed away, now memories of spring once new.
Each vanished summer warmth supplanted by autumn's chilled air.
Those bright, possibility-filled days of dawns now dusks -
Naivete's fading light overwhelmed by experience's shadow.
No matter the knowledge or worldly wisdom one now brusquely brusques,
Time marches on, its grains flowing to their final, fallow meadow.
So much grasped for yet forever just beyond one's clutches,
As the dunes reshape beneath those desperate, scrabbling hands.
Grains spill through fingers and hours through clenched watches,
Ever reshaping this life's ephemerally sun-baked lands.
In the end those grains enfold like an evening's sandstorm
Obscuring all in a swirling, impenetrable shroud. Accomplishments, failures, longings - erased in the timeless norm Of forever's duned veil, that ultimate, unforgiving cloud.
Oh to have appreciated those early saved grains,
Those wispy, fragile moments of childhood's effervescent glow. Each one an irreplaceable gem, like fresh, warm spring rains
Before summer's blazing truth melted innocence into fall's letting go.
Now the end draws near, as life's hourglass lies depleted,
Its final trickles cascading through age's folding hands. Here stands a stooped, weary figure - by time so deftly cheated,
Whose purpose and legacy shift with these abandoned lands.
Only when it's too late do most pause to bemoan
Those wasted grains idly squandered upon the dunes of youth.
Wishing for the foresight to reverently have overthrown
Ephemeral folly with everlasting, eternal truth.
Ah, but that wisdom arrives not with morn's precocious hues -
Only evening's lingering ember flickers that Promethean spark. Too late for the spent to change their life's deepening runes,
As night envelops in hushed finality, leaving us alone in the dark.
What solace remains as the dunes swallow this mortal coil
But to root one's gaze upon those distant, ever-shifting shores?
To spread one's spirit like grains upon the waves' cosmic toil,
And become eternity - as endless as time itself outdoors.
Yes, in those final moments, truth glares with brutal lucidity -
We are merely pawns in life's senseless, tragic cosmic play.
Till that backgammon moment when death achieves mortal liquidity,
We fruitlessly flail against the tides that wash us away.
Yet those enduring sands of time shall new stories enshrine
Long after our drama's banal tales ebb and fade to black. Life's ruthless cycle carries on through the centuries, ever in rewind -
Each epoch rising, peaking, then imploding back unto the cosmic track.
Just grains flowing through that inexorable universal funnel
Scattered fragments of existence in an ever-unfolding crush. All existence atomized by the cosmos' remorseless funnel - Our legacies but washed away particles in time's sandblasted hush.
How swiftly sands blow, obscuring the past's chiseled faces,
Allowing new narratives room to emerge, spread, and bloom.
Thus the future will judge us by what transient, fleeting traces
We leave behind in the never-ending sands of memorial dune.
So we strain to outline our forms against time's endless horizon
For just a few shifting moments before being forever inurned. What statues, scripts or songs will we cast - immortal beacons?
Or shall all we create and become be dissolved, unmourned?
Till finally even those lasting remnants succumb to desert age,
Their temporal outlines erased into obscurity's dusted, ageless waste.
Only then, freed from existence's fleetingly-fated page,
Might we find eternal rest, no more chased by tomorrow's haste.
But I implore you, as grains cascade gently through the last vanes
Let us not surrender too easily to dissolution's eddying drift.
Before acquiescing to time's overwhelming, crushing refrains,
Embrace each moment as an opportunity to truly live and uplift.
Yes, existence is fleeting - a brief spark flickering in the endless night,
Swiftly extinguished before one can express its full radiant worth.
But during those few, brilliant instants, you possess the power to ignite An undying flame to warm this cosmos, remolding its very dunes into fresh birth.
Seize those grains as they fall, profane mortality's curse by your glorious light -
Transfigure them into enduring art, wonders that transcend space and time.
Use each invaluable grain to chisel moments into eternal delight,
So that though we perish, some part of our legacy might forever shine.
Forge your hours into diamantine sculptures of supreme beauty and meaning
That shall endure long after the desert sands have shifted anew.
So that when next the dunes stretch before some distant, awakening being
They'll bear inspirational witness to all you struggled and suffered through.
Use those grains like notes of symphonic pathos and timeless heroism
Stirring the heavens with courage, hope and perseverance divine. Spin those grains into tapestries of profound romantic naturalism So their scenes of beauty echo through eternity to soothe any troubled mind.
Or channel that ephemeral time into words that lucidly enlighten and elevate
Rising above the grains as philosophies that shall forever edify.
Let your pearls of wisdom nourish human spirit, slake every hunger to satiate,
So that through you, untold beings might find their wondrous path before they die.
For what purpose beyond living its entirety with meaning and splendor,
Regardless of the cosmic scale, the brevity of one's hourglass window? Why squander these grains in petty pursuits that die like embers' last ember
When we might ignite an eternal flame to inspire generations to come, and go?
In the end, when our forms are etched into sand just like ancient monoliths -
All that shall remain of these scattered, streaming moments that defined us, Are the marks we leave behind through our words, deeds and timeless myths -
Which like the sun's ray through fog, illuminate the path for those who continue thus.
So behold each new grain as a precious blank slate upon which to engrave
Some vital wisdom, lyrical psalm or revelation to raise the human spark. Pour your fiery passion onto its pallid face like radiant lava,
And riotously embrace each day as the masterpiece for your life's masterwork!
Yes, how swiftly these sands of time slip through our mortal embrace -
So let us create beauty immortal while we can, before we turn forever to dust. Sculpt, spin, sing, or inscribe upon oblivion's blank, ever-shifting face
Profane not what scarce grains remain with the mundane, forgettable or unjust!
For despite these desert dunes soon swallowing your slender,
