Time - Ella J. (2022

By Ella J. (2022)

Life is a cursed hourglass It holds equilibrium for a mere second And then it’s off Tipped scales and unwanted speeds

Unsatisfied souls claw at the glass They pry open its lid and reach in Scooping up sand or trying to prevent its passage Down the long spiraling tunnel

Either way Their efforts are in vain The grains slide through the cracks between their fingers Almost mockingly As if they are scoffing at the meekness of humankind

Always attempting to fight Time But knocked out of the arena Before they can fully approach

Time will not dignify them with the honor of facing her They are not worthy They are overly eager and overly lazy

They don’t appreciate her steady rhythm She ticks and they see rows of graves And smell the damp rot of decaying life She ticks and they hear Death and all of his complexities

And for that, she will always resent them For the tick-tick is her pulse A steady eternal heartbeat The center of her soul

People forsake her and her wisdom She has seen it all with steady, grey eyes But no one appreciates that she spans beyond them

They think of life as a bridge in which she lays the tiles Endpoints on either side Endpoints that are the equivalent of a grain of sand In the hourglass of the century A relative nothingness in the hourglass of life

But people have their own ends Blinded by the visions of endpoints They wish to trap Time in a cage Restrain her Use her A divine grab of power

Their wish will not be realized Her throne too high Defense too strong

She surveys it all Composed as ever But with the hintings of a sigh As if attempting to release The weight placed on her misty shoulders Of the scapegoating and the dread

Yet through all of this Her pulse stays steady Each beat sending Grains of sand down the hourglass Uniting the universe In a sharp Tick-tick