Impermanance

The hour passes.
No one notices at first.

Light moves along the wall.
A chair changes its shadow.

We say time is leaving
but it was never here for us.

It moves
the way dew disappears from grass
once the sun arrives.

A flower opens in the morning.

By afternoon
one petal has loosened.

No one calls this tragedy.

The flower simply knows
how to finish what it began.

The river understands this also.

It keeps moving
because there is somewhere else to go.

You could call that loss.

Or you could call it direction.

A bird sings at dusk.

The song ends
before the listener is ready.

Perhaps that is why
it matters.

Leaves fall every year.

No leaf argues with gravity.

The tree does not protest
when the branch grows bare.

Something continues
beyond the moment of falling.

The heart learns slowly.

It holds things
long after they are finished.

It imagines permanence
as a kind of reward.

But the world offers something else.

Everything brightens
because it cannot stay.

Even grief
is a form of recognition.

The hour passes.

The flower loosens.

The river moves.

Nothing remains.

And still
the world does not become empty.