-- Between Two Eternities --

­­John Herlihy

We think of eternity as an endless expanse;

What eternity really is nobody truly knows.

Infinities of outer space let our hope advance;

Quiet unsettled hearts, to hold them in repose.

When does time not really represent time?

When the echoes of moments no longer chime.

When does the past not really reflect the past?

When all our treasured memories no longer last.

The river of the body runs thru the sieve of time;

The beginning leads to fruition until decline and end.

We ride time’s arrow thru life’s seaweed and brine;

Always change, never the same, as a tree we bend.

What is the course of life but brief moments in time;

Days measured in minutes, hearts beating the hour.

Our wakeful consciousness giving us a feeling sublime;

Our time on earth as an eternity with special power.

This then raises the question of possibly two eternities;

The eternity before I was born, the eternity after I die.

A conundrum amounting to the mystery of mysteries;

Truth embedded within a truth that cannot ever lie.

Let’s think on this further, indeed let’s consider it more;

Was my destiny already written even before I was born?

A message in a bottle on an ocean without any shore;

To be opened and read, in effect from eternity torn.

At the moment of death, we slip back to an eternity waiting;

Like outer space, eternity surrounds us, each moment there.

Our lives steeped in time, but the mystery always baiting;

Eternity’s embrace patiently waiting as our souls laid bare.

We have a clear responsibility these questions to ponder;

Two eternities blend into one eternity where we always exist.

With a sense of awakening, of miracle, of mystery, of wonder,

The greatest story ever told that no one ever wishes to miss.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Saturday 23 January 2021