Living in the Season

I stayed awake, flitting from hope to hope,

thinking there was still something to find on earth, a completion of the day.

Then I realized I had sowed little to be expecting a harvest.

I had wandered the fields looking for something to eat

when it was planting time.

I bought the things I needed, but I did not put them to use;

I ate food that was meant for tomorrow.

I sat up all night trying to find an end to the day, but found it not

and the new day took no pity on me.

I hated what was near and wanted what I could not have.

I loathed my memory of throwing words to the wind.

My eyes grew dry, but I did not wash them.

I stored up an inheritance

which would benefit the living, not the dead--

and I pondered what I would find when death found me.

But in the end I knew this--

a woman rises up in the morning because it is a new day

and the sunrise demands it.

But she only relinquishes the day

when she remembers that the answer is to fear God.

There's no completion on earth.

It is best to let go of a moment as readily as you've taken it in your hand.

The moments don't even know themselves.

But God knows every moment

and it is He who established

a time to wake and a time to sleep.