Timekeeping
We stand side-by-side you and I,
Resilient against the deepening dusk,
Silently drowning in inky blue
And the finality of words hewn in stone.
I can feel the torpor of numb grief through the layers of your solemn dress.
I cannot convince you to leave or speak but listen, if you can.
There is a time for laughter,
A time for sorrow,
A time for truth,
And a time for stories.
Wisdom is but proper timekeeping.
Give me your hand.
I'm going to tell you a story about endings.
Did you know the sun and moon were not always as you see them,
Lifeless orbs of gas and rock?
Before the sun and moon took their place in the heavens
To measure out our days,
They were great friends who walked the earth together.
Each loved the other deeply but they could agree on nothing,
As though both stood on a different side of life's looking-glass.
One day, as they shared a peaceful stroll together,
The sun became afflicted by a terrible melancholy
And confided mournfully in his friend.
“All things end, Sister Moon.
All things wither and die.
How can we abide it,
When no corner of our beloved land will endure as we do?”
“Do not weep, Brother Sun,
For nothing truly ends.
We are but different expressions,
Flitting across life's brow,
One mood into the next.”
“See the flowers wane and trees ebb, divested.
The colours fade to grey with wind paled and shrivelled to a whisper,
All things diminished.”
“No Brother, you see the seasons turning,
Autumn's bounty into the sweet chill of Winter's respite,
The breath before the newborn's cry.”
“This is no slumber to restore what has been!
What was is gone Sister — carrion rotted to the earth.
There is no Spring for the lamented.”
“You are wrong, Brother.
What was spirit is not past but passed.
Look closer!
See what life is given at the ending,
Manifold in splendour.”
“The continents of our lands grind themselves to dust,
Lakes boiled to sand,
The very earth melting into itself, seeking liquid death.”
“No Brother, do not despair!
The land returns to itself to be renewed
And is here reborn in the fertile heart of volcano's chaotic labours.”
“The ice marches pitilessly,
Milling all from meadow to moor,
Crushing light into her lifeless breast,
All consigned forever to the dark.”
“Dearest, the ice is no eternal shroud!
See how she carves new valleys,
Life asleep beneath her opal veil.
She recedes. The world is new.”
The moon loved the sun beyond compare but,
Try as she might,
She could not turn him from his grief,
Show him death’s gift in life's embrace.
“Sister, I am afraid.
Beneath my gaze is life bestowed
But I can never know what lies beyond the limit of my eyes.
What awaits me in the shadow?”
“My love,
I will stand guard beyond the limit of your eyes,
A sentinel in the dark,
So you need never be afraid of what awaits you there,
For it is I.”
And to this day,
Moon has kept her promise faithfully —
To wait beyond the threshold of Sun's reckoning,
To be a candle,
A hope in the dark.
Though she misses her friend,
And sometimes hides her face to weep in secret,
She is content to wait patiently,
Always beyond his horizon.
Because the moon knows
That there is a time for laughter,
A time for sorrow,
A time for truth
And a time for stories.
There is a time for meetings and for partings,
Though they barb us brutally.
But do not surrender your heart to brittle despair like the sun.
For our people leave us like the moon,
Only to await us in the dark,
To guard the place beyond the limit of our eyes,
So that we need not be afraid.
