Time

Part I — Bhavachakra

Time does not heal all wounds—it erases them
Ozymandias once ruled an empire
that conquered the sun
but it blew away
in the windswept dust, undone

Solomon’s seal
An emblem held between Adversity and Prosperity
“This too shall pass away”
For the verses of existence
Are etched in brief measures
Dismantled by the passing hours

Generations labored and loved
their destinies intertwined
Some sang hymns of triumph
Others raised the Widow’s cry
Wrought with chains
baptized in blood
The sacraments of Time

Bhavachakra
the wheel turns
beasts and men and gods
rise, fall, return again
In an everlasting song

Ephemeral, yet evergreen
adrift on winds
that push an empty hearse
Frivolity and vanity
dissolve throughout endless scenes

Your mind and your heart
The fragments of your soul,
Your love, and all your hate
your unearned pride
Shall pass into legend
and legends beyond
Then inexorably from Time

Part II — Destruction

Behold the broken columns,
the statues faceless, toppled in the sand
An empire’s tongue lies mute beneath syllables of stone
its edicts scattered in the wind
Its soul potted where it stands

Once marble palaces glistened in the sun
Once iron gates guarded the dreams of men
Now vultures roost where princes slept
and thorns reclaim the garden walls

What pride has built, Time crumbles
Arches bow, spires sink
Dilapidated monuments
To the immemorial
The triumphs of a thousand hands
become a single ruin, nameless, vast

Traveler—gaze upon the dust
To behold the fate of every edifice
This is the covenant of power
To stand for a moment
then fall for eternity

Ashes inherit the thrones of kings
Roofbeams splinter in endless cascades
The domes of cathedrals collapse inward
Each hymn turned brittle in chorus

Time unfastens every knot
Sinew to dust, cities to deserts
Memory to perdition
The soul’s feast for ruin and rot

The banners of war
disintegrate to tatters
Unread decrees dissolve like salt in rain
even Love’s great monuments lean
towards the hungry maw of oblivion

All we build is a tinder box
All we dream is smoke
And still, the fire hunts
Devouring without desire
As patient a conflagration
as the stars burning in their sky

Part III– The Black Sea of Stars

Time does not flow
It blooms
a thousand petals opening at once
each petal a universe
each vein a beginning and an end

What hour is it?
The clocks speak in copper tongues
but the stars do not answer
The heavens turn without haste
galaxies grinding their teeth in silence
comets searing hieroglyphs across the void

I saw an old astronomer chart the sky
numbers upon parchment
as though arithmetic could bind the horizon
I heard a prophet cry in the desert wind,
“Time is a leminscate, an ouroboros eating its tail
We grope among it’s curves like blind men
learning time by the shape of statues.”

Nebulas pulse like lungs of forgotten gods
Worlds burn, collapse, scatter,
their ashes sown as seeds
in the womb of another eon
Yet Time watches without a face
It does not forgive, nor does it condemn
The hours are shadows thrown
against the curved walls of eternity

We measure it in dust
in the orbit of a ruined moon
in the slow decay of mountains
eroding into sand
But the metric
is not the thing itself
The sundial lies broken in the field
yet the shadow lengthens still

Listen—
a voice beneath the cosmic wind
You are younger than the stones,
older than the dream of fire
You are the interval between pulses
But scarcely the pulse itself

Time is neither ruler nor servant
It is the patient abyss
the deep tide dragging all shores
into the mandible of unending space
The undiscovered country

Even when the stars shiver and vanish
even when the black fabric unravels
Time will hum
a soundless dirge beyond collapse
a slow vibration in the marrow of Nothing
as though Nothingness itself must keep
its schedule

Part IV — Acceptance

From the ruin, a gentler truth
A hat to hang in a dimly lit parlor
To stand unshaken is to break
but to bend is to endure

The river does not resist the stone
It shapes it
The oak bows in stormlight
and finds tomorrow’s field verdant

What is lost was never owned
What remains was never ours to keep
We are borrowers of hours
Tenants of an eternal dusk

A twilight set from the fickle sun’s sleep
And all the angels now that weep
We see farther than those far behind
But only in our dreams can we understand
The transient nature of Time

So rest in the turning wheel
take solace in the endless passage
In surrender there is release
In destruction—unquenchable desire

The hand unclenched is free to give
the heart unmoored is free to love
Time may erase us henceforth
but it teaches us the value
of an amber moment

Where impermanence is gorgeous
like the dove
Soaring to the heights of majesty
Our unfulfilled dreams only thirst
In the Sahara of our Anima
Our barren husks offered as reliquaries

Here is no refuge, only passage
Fragments of light across a barren shore,
the tide whispering in broken tongues
The words forgotten, the stones carved
With Adamic runes
mottled with dirt and love

What we thought eternal
melts like frost at the morning’s dew
The crowd moves on
faces dissolve in the turning of a page
Between the silence and the echo
we find a rhythm, faint, persistent

The dust does not accuse
the stone does not remember
What remains is the waiting
the stillness between bells
the vibrato of wings in an empty sky

And in the stillness, a voice
not promise, not despair
only the murmur
This is enough
This is enough

Part V – Triumph

Samsara—death and rebirth
Unmakes that which seems eternal
Shatters the illusion of forever
leaves all things untethered
And from the wreck of ages
All shall rise, unconquered

From whence we come
The rose and the prickly thorns
The wind rattling in lonely gutters
a voice half-heard in the stairwell
The whispers of departure

Whither we go
toward the fractured horizon
A frontier untamed and vast
red dusk spilling its secrets
into the dreaming river

Let this be known: nothing is known

So live your life
through veils of tears
through the grinding of machines
Your unsung words scatter in alleys
As shards of broken bottles
scrape your tender skin

Beneath an indifferent sky
The Absurd is a mirror
you traverse all the oceans
but drown in the puddle
That lurks outside your door

Build your empire
cardboard towers leaning against the rain
an inheritance of rust and soot
Raise your Kingdom high
On the bones of better men
stacked like timber
their laughter still singing in the dust

What is left?
Children on a sandy shoreline
playing among the dunes
their castles already half-collapsed
But in that moment, raised eternally

Stand tall
Draw strength from silent liturgy
For in the ruins of Time
you are King of Rubble
Queen of Shadows
a tattered banner in the winds of change

Become the fullness of yourself
Orgami creased into the shape you are meant to be
Be all of the beautiful colors
That exist in-between
Love and blood, mud and ash
the phosphorescence of decay

What kindness you scatter
crumbs for sparrows,
a gesture unseen
still blooms in the hearts
of forsaken souls
guiding them through hell and grief

We shattered Chronos’ iron crown
Stole flame from the hourglass
Once kept safe by the Horae
Our banners shall blaze once again
where absence held dominion

Hope gathers the scattered hours
weaving loss into luminous thread
What time would cast as ashes
(For all worlds fall asunder)
hope redeems as seeds for scatterlings
And from the wasteland, forests awaken

Immortal minds, we stride beyond decay
And when the world rends open
when plaster cracks and ceilings fall
Find peace in the twinkling of stars
your grace disperses like smoke
But your lungs stay filled with hope

Nothing else truly matters more
For all things made shall crumble
uncollected, unencumbered
dust upon dust
forever undiscovered