Mortality Sonnet 1-09-11

When I say “always” to the one I love,
  It means with luck right now 35 years --
A teardrop in Time’s bucket, a mote of
  Dust in God’s eye too small to summon tears.
I say “forever” and it means until
  The stars die, which will come long after my
Life teeters and falls from Death’s windowsill
  Like a brief smothered taper from the sky.
“Forever” and “always” are magic words
  We use to make ourselves blind to this truth:
Time is the wolf who savages all herds
  And every hour we breathe we feel his tooth.
     Of this one dead-sure thing we never talk:
     Our lives are instants in forever’s clock.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells