We bear, in each one of us,
A world of sorrows.
Even our moments of gladness
Are made heavy with the weight of our vulnerability.
“Hold on to this – it is fleeting!
It may not come again!”
Our sweetest joys
Are tempered by this truth.
We are flames that burn so bright,
So beautiful,
That flare and in a moment, gutter.
But it is this reality—
Our ephemerality,
Our brief mortality—
That makes us near-divine.
The angels, who do not change
Or age or die,
Look upon us in awe.
We who are gifted to love,
And sacrifice,
And lose,
And grieve,
And endure.
We are most like the eternal God,
Who lives outside of time
In the ever-present “Now,”
When we are captivated by
A fragile moment – one of the short span we are given.
Our weak mortality shoves us closer to the immortal.
Woman With a Pen 