Breathe Deeply

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A doleful village clock

Mournful of each passing hour

Counts out time’s fading leaves.

Its resonate note pauses too long

A desolate voice, it hangs in the air

Reluctant to relinquish existence

Before yielding to the harvest dust of passing time.

 

A solemn warning against waiting, it says

“Live now and breathe deeply of life

In the eternity of each fleeting moment”.

Tomorrow will soon be yesterday.

Loose no time to live without love

Wherever it may be hiding.

Banish the threat of living as a shadow

Of what should have been.

Life’s bitter sweet colour

Waits to bestow new vigour.

 

Live not in the shadow of time past.

Messy, ceaseless searching is better

Than to fall away into the apparent safety of

Shadows and sidelines.

 

Breathe deeply of life in the eternity of each passing moment.

Accept life’s gauntlet,

Obey the rocky pathways that shout in silence

Around life’s ever changing sea.

 

Do not fear the fleeting judgements of others

These are but clouds which whisper and fade.

Fear only dying before you have lived and truly breathed of love.

 

Across the dreamy summer meadow with its cascading flowers

And in winter’s cold, crystalline, frost cage,

the church bell counts out its solemn notes,

Tolling for time past, time present

And for time yet to come.


© Iona Waters

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