"A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!APsalmof_Life

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Grainy and clear blue
always loud but with moments of silence
rhythmically chaotic
a paradox of logic

And the people there
those people
are the same

Lying flat in a river bed and covered in sheets of water:
this is where you will live.
Pure, ice-cold springwater flows
around and through, picking clean our bones like a vulture,
taking out the filth that collects like soot in chimneys.

From here only two roads:
To let go or hold on.
The instinct is to deny! hold tight, forever and ever, keep safe,
but you are here to learn the river’s lesson, to follow the flow, to be
carried away and let go.
Die happily, knowing.

Spread like sand
across the hills and gullies
peacefully dispersing
along centuries to form and reform,
learning that there are no endings.
And to know by cycles,
building familiarity, some core knowledge
which undoes the instinct that says “hold on”
and “not yet”
and “fight.”

Instead, become waterlogged.
Give up your boundaries.
This is the only way.

Freeing from the shackles of the past
trickling down to a catharsis
at the slender neck of the hourglass,
the golden grains of sand
dribble down
to create my reality.

Unhurriedly they flow,
with me they flow
into the forgottenness of the past  they flow,
to rise like a Phoenix
clothed in the newness
of the present
to create a new me!

Countless generations walked here
ever since humanity dawned on this planet.
Some honoured, but many obscure –
like flowers that bloom in the wilderness
without an eye to adore their beauty!

On the sands of time,
they all left their footprints… but
with their swift sweeps, the sea waves
wiped them to oblivion.

But the grains of sand revere
all the feet that ever kissed them.
With great awe, they treasure in their souls
their footprints, celebrate
humanity’s sojourn on this planet!

As abundant as specks of sand in the dessert
As frail as a towering sand castle in a beach
Countless times we enter the cycle of death and birth
No matter how we desire, eternity we won’t reach

People need to find happiness in this brief life of ours
Different beginnings but still collapse in death’s embrace
We don’t need to count our years, months, days and hours
This is a limited life to enjoy, this isn’t a timed race

Nothing is ever built to last
All lives will fade, all metals will rust
Even celestial worlds will wane
For destruction is creation’s bane

In an hourglass watching the falling sand
One by one, grain by grain, and second by second
I feel sadness for our inevitable fate
No matter the happiness, this sadness won’t sate

In every walk of life there are many reasons
A reason for every step
Though there are only four seasons
In between them we smile, we live, we weep

I keep walking in resignation
And continue life in indignation
Life is my wonderful loan
While death is my due after I’ve grown

I have begun from a cry
Time pass, like a fleeting cloud that has flown
Living until on death’s bed lie
Then ending life with a groan

They say the human mind
can’t fathom infinity.
That there are more burning stars
than grains of sand,
That the universe
is ever expanding,
That there is no end.

And this rattles our bodies to the core.
The uncanniness sets in.

But when I sit with you
with your warmth wrapped tightly around me,
Your scent filling my head,
Your voice softly floating in the quiet,
gazing up at the night sky
Infinity doesn’t seem so unfathomable.