Time

The house is quiet

My love by my side

The children asleep

All dreaming their dreams

I lay awake and uneasy

My hazy dreams replaced with lucid thoughts

My peace replaced with worry

How much is left of this thing called time?

A day? A week? How many months or years lie ahead?

I ponder this as I listen to my wife breathing deeply in her dreams

I think of my children

Four children. Four dreams

How much of their future will I share?

My own mother and father gone too soon

So many years away from the family still here

So much I’ve wasted

So much time now in the past

Just one more hug. Just one more conversation

But time moved too fast

The words came too late

Regret is nobody’s friend

Yet it never leaves your side

The time behind is gone

The time ahead unknown

The present quickly slips by

Gone too soon if I let it

What will I do with it?

Let it go without saying a word?

Take hold of it and savor every moment?

It’s not for me to say

Only time will tell