In the wilderness of life’s changing landscape,
the pathway across the tortuous topography
winds through perceived present to formless future,
I traverse following the faint footprints of fate.
Many surging streams in spate I swim in storm
with hopes held close to the heart lest they drown.
Chasing the beguiled butterflies in the verdant valley
the fervent dreams fly through the rainbow arc.
As the spent sun sinks in the tinge of twilight,
from the cryptic crypt of uncertainty I look back,
see the snapshots of convivial contentment,
resplendent in the benevolent glow of God’s grace.
With weary steps I now walk the last mile,
perceive the beginning of the journey’s end.
The sands of my penultimate time slide away fast,
I sense the rolling hourglass is almost empty.
The hours passed like seconds
And stripped our youth away
The years they passed like miles
From the window of a plane
As life goes on and ticks away
And the glass runs out of sand
The hours pass like seconds
Times a curse upon this land
As each grain of sand trickles down,
And more grains gather,
We draw closer to twilight,
Journeying toward the final door.
Our days are counted by the descent of the sand,
Our existence is measured by its accumulation.
A higher mound lifts us the ladder,
A mystery that often makes us ponder.
Trapped by time,
We shine and gradually fade.
We are called by the morning and journey into the night,
The glass is turned over, revealing elsewhere.
The hourglass resides in the chambers of the universe,
Manipulated by the Eternal Unseen.
Its mysteries unlock a profound door,
A depth that exceeds comprehension.
June 15, 2026.
ALL the flipping,
tossing and turning,
sand turning black
then red at dawn;
still yawning.
The cock crowing;
sun and moon avoid
my half-open trance.
My crescents ache
from the webbed glass
in the lacrimal corners.
Shadows creep,
reflections of my BOO.
I try to force
my opponent
feet over head,
so I can go back to bed.
Goblin of a sandman
is giggling,
crooning creepy songs.
Dusk breaks and I
hit the Boogieman
full force with his own
container of grit;
I pass out.
As I awaken,
with a blazing grin,
I shine the hourglass,
so peacefully at rest.
The silent sands in glass glide down,
A demure drip, without a frown.
Each grain a moment, soft and fine
In life`s pages, a gift divine.
They buzz tales of days that slipped by,
Of joys that bloomed, then flew to sky;
The present trickles like a stream,
Reflecting the soul`s fleeting dream.
In the un-spilled part of the sand
We eye the future that still stands,
A heap of hope, a silent plea
To cherish all that comes to be.
The world keeps whirling, time evolve,
Bits by bits, our muscles dissolve,
The hourglass mirrors our short stay,
Reminds us, life won't ever sway.
So, while blood still runs through our veins
Let us use our hands and our brains,
The world, a better place to build,
From rains and woeful winds to shield.
Written: June 10th, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Nette Onclaud
************************
Do I feel empty?
Or am I becoming a void?
Or am I amassing light to be thick?
Shimmering hourglass embosoms paradoxes—
emptiness and fullness, darkness and light.
A sandy spot with winter asperity cinders,
a vestige of the iterative nature of life,
each grain of time trickling a wave,
ebbing and flowing,
forever shifting, undulating.
Whatever twist, whatever spin,
I sustain you in the din,
anchored on the ledge of chiming.
In all scopes, the sand-clock is versatile,
grain by grain, a vertical choir—counts—
flux, looms as a flash of fearlessness,
from ash, arises a phoenix, pristine slate.
Pulled from my mother's womb
to wander through each passing year
where every dream flows like a waterfall
to fill the hour of my soul with yesterdays
These yesterdays I folded into the scroll of time
and cast them upon my memory's pyre
the hours so fleeting, once were mine
My skin now wrinkled, my hair now gray
I hear the whispers of tomorrow
as I watch the far horizon, knowing the sun will set
and the sands of my life will drop its last grain
with my final breath
leaving the ashes of my memories to drift away
fading into the embrace of eternity
Invisible, you are, but always, there,
as your sands, fall steadily, grain by grain,
while callow youths forget you without care,
you tick off days of happiness and pain.
Each moment, and each tiny grain of time,
as it goes from the future to the past,
can only fall, and never can it climb,
as those bygone days cannot be recast.
While your slim waist, but one grain will allow,
soon the last one's grim outcome will be wrought,
as I approach the closing, final "now",
I find solace in a comforting thought.
My grandchild's birth is coming soon and then,
hourglass, you'll be flipped over once again.
I'm trapped inside
This hourglass
I see you watch me
As you pass
You put me here
So here I stand
Sink or swim
In deathly sand
Time means nothing
I turn to stone
Forgotten flesh
And soulless bone
This pointless wait
You'll never free
Me from this prison
This glass and me
Time, cruel mistress.
A relentless march,
stealing, such an ugly word.
It prefers the term: harvest.
Moments, experiences, people.
Gone, in an instant.
Such things are gone forever.
Unless,
They live on.
Within hearts, memories.
For all its cruelty,
A humble teacher emerges in its wake,
guiding those who seek to understand.
Only then, we can forgive ourselves.
Before the final journey begins
feet rest awhile at the shoreline of faith
to keep the promise made to self,
etch the last footprints on twilight sands,
slipping away in the obscure hourglass.
The sand was always falling~
but then, between one grain and the next,
a pause.
A fracture in time,
thin as a hairline crack in glass,
where You stood,
unmoving,
while the world blurred around You
like a river around a stone.
I reached~
not with hands, but with something older,
something that remembers
before skin, before breath~
and for the length of a held heartbeat,
You were there.
Not a voice.
Not a face.
Just the weight of being watched
by something that never blinks.
Then the sand rushed again,
and the moment dissolved
like salt in water.
Now I carry it~
this glimpse, this splinter of forever
lodged in my ribs,
where it burns
and does not burn away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, God,
through the hourglass
I saw you, eternal~
not bearded on a throne,
but grains themselves,
falling endlessly
into the lower chamber.
You were the fracture
between then and now,
the quiet hiss of time
escaping its glass prison.
I reached to touch you,
but my fingers met only
the slow, indifferent trickle~
the dust of prophets and kings
ground fine between them.
You are the Shape
the sand forgets
as it pours.
My hourglass sits idle
motionless
two-minute timer
Sometimes I’m
imprisoned
in its structure
with no way out
cascading sand closing in—
Two-minute warning!
(whistle blows)
So far surviving, thriving
thankful that my time
has yet to expire
(preaching to the choir)
~*~*~
My eyes just see the tip of my toes,
path unknown full of storms.
Every step leaving something behind for the future I seek,
gazing into neverland I can not reach.
Holding hands with some of my ghosts I care about,
the bad ones crawling on my back to stay around.
As what I end up where,
I don't know.
Show me knowledge and I'll go.
I'll leave the present behind gladly,
as if in the future death couldn't get me.
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