Poem is specifically structured with seven meaning filled lines in each stanza, provoking thought of beginnings and ends assured each one.

Once A Lifetime



Life hangs in tedious balance
Surety unknown
Minute to minute
Hour to hour
Day to day
Month to month
Year to year

Evaporated moments
Resembling a vapor in the wind
Present, vanishing quickly
Dichotomy obvious
Reality certain
Slowed
Disregarded

Life’s Fragility taken for granted
Consciously unappreciated
Until closing stages
Too late
Changes, decisions contrary
Loss or gain weighed
Pointless choices made

Given birth, life,
Without present thought
Recipient under-appreciative
until childhood
seeks decision
regarding future adulthood
plans, requirements

Mid-life struggles
Competing, completing
Obeying, learning, conveying
Messages important
Lessons necessary
Reaching the peak
Pinnacles of success or failure

Realization of life half gone
Half remaining
Forcing us to enjoy deterioration
Too Conscious of fleeting youth gone
Bodies slowing, pains growing
Friends and family changing
Some young now older, older now old

Only the good died young
The enlightened die old
Not one is innocent
From the onset of life itself
Education no longer matters
Determination and stubbornness
Keep us moving, breathing

Whippoorwills and clouds are calling
Singing us life’s last warning
Take what matters from this world
Nothing lasts but inner soul
Who has carried us through it all
Who now pulls us longingly
Into worlds eternal, timeless, ageless, but not free