Time

Time is a mysterious thing.
It is the ebb and flow of the universe. The pulsing of life.
Elusive yet definable.
It is the shallow breath in my lungs and the fluttering rhythm in my chest.
It is the sun rising and setting in its course.
Tender shoots sprouting from the earth. Trees blooming then laying themselves bare again.
Stars rotating above this blue and green orb like streaks of fire in the black velvet sky.
Time.
It is a human constraint too, a frame of reference.
Clocks spinning. Numbers changing.
An attempt to explain what is slipping away from us - that which is brief and unable to be retained by human hands.

The one thing we can never get back again.

Time is history; the end of one era and the beginning of another.
It is the rising and falling of empires.
And it is also the sweet intimacy of a little girl’s arms wrapped tightly around my waist.

“Mommy, you have to come see! It’s a cardinal!”

“Really?” I smile down at her.

“Come see it! Hurry!” She races from the kitchen to the dining room.

But I get caught up. I truly intend to go and see that cardinal. I couldn’t even tell you what interrupts me from going and enjoying that moment of simple wonder with her. Someone needing something from me; a momentary emergency, perhaps. But a few minutes later I am passing down the hall and I see her frame in the front window. Her face is turned toward the yard.

“You missed it,” she says, looking back at me with a rueful smile. “It flew away.”