Image credit: Heartland Arts

Glimpses of our mortality
come too often these days
Aching joints and muscles betray
the youth we still feel sheltered
here inside
It is sobering this knowledge
of the inevitability of decay
All these little ambitions at our feet
amount to nothing on that day

Through this dark glass I espy
my own skull withered
watching back to me again
As though in bitter, lost memory
Ah yes, this creature was once me!
It seems to say and laugh
with crueller irony, and it
amounts to nothing on that day

Life passage is the same each one
No matter how we strive to prove
our individuality, it falls
to rituals and timing, as does all
From dust we come and to dust we go
No earthly shackles may we overthrow
And cries to heaven are unheard, they
amount to nothing on that day

(c) Helen Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved