Your Hourglass

Time is measured with insufficient grains of sand,

Hissing between the cracks of your fingers and hands.

No matter the manner of containment you have,

There is no method of your too-scant years to save.

See the gray man with empty, dusty calloused hands?

His eyes lift to heaven; his bent back tries to stand.

His hourglass now emptied; his stay here is void.

Are silver tears his lament of a perished boy?

Observe the child, her hands teeming with sediment,

To the rumbling blue sea, her laugh is a descant.

Her feet eagerly run on the uneven ground,

Because she does not know that her sand will run out.

I’ve watched strong youthful men become weak, gray, and frail,

And too many infants born without breath to wail.

Too many believe immortality simple.

“Turn the hourglass, watch my destiny ripple!”

The top of the hourglass remains unrevealed,

Yet the bottom is false; your end written and sealed.

It’s futile to strain and preserve life in the din,

Foolish to serve vanity and be rife in sin.

There’s no time to be wasted, there’s no time to hoard.

What you are allotted, handle in true accord.

Spend precious seconds with friends and family too,

You don’t know your end until your sand has passed through.