Our time on
earth is much too short,
The years we’re
given are far too few.
We race through
time without a thought,
Too little time,
too much to do.
There’s never
time to take the time,
To fill the
measure of our day.
No time for
this, no time for that,
No time to stop
or rest or play.
This fleeting
marker we call time,
We cannot see,
or catch, or loan.
We can’t lose
what’s not ours to keep,
Nor can we save
what we don’t own.
We make time for
a given task,
Yet time itself
cannot be made.
We cannot get
back time that’s past,
In the endless
march of time’s parade.
Time often
drags, or seems to fly,
It doesn’t stop,
it’s never still.
It can’t speed
up and won’t slow down,
It bends us to
unyielding will.
When our brief
space in time is gone,
And death has
got us in his thrall,
We curse time,
then we beg for more,
But time ignores
our mournful call.
Time grips with
unforgiving hands,
And in an
instant, lets us go.
But when and
where our time will end,
Is something
we’re not meant to know.
For time eternal
won’t look back,
It knows no pity
for beast nor man.
Time has no
life, yet knows not death,
It does not feel
or think or plan.
For life’s a
circle, so they say,
The ending comes
back to the start.
But time’s long
journey is straight, and true,
And that’s where
time and man must part.
© John Greenwood 2007