He turns five today; all is future, nothing past.
All his days are yet to flower, yet to come.
Wherever he goes, he runs—those shoes will not last.
He grows and his slumber is not, as yet, harassed
by twilight’s pestering flies, those furies born from
…something. So much is future, so little past.
Then midnight, then morning—the noon sun rises fast.
His hours and his actions march to the steady drum
of youth and strength which carry as long as light will last.
In the pile of spent days, he has amassed
a fortune of memory, such an invaluable sum,
and on the scale of days, now heavy weighs the past.
For every day a Rubicon is crossed, a die is cast,
and slow but irreversibly the fulcrum
balancing our days proceeds from first to last.
In age, he wonders what quests and questions were not asked.
What might have? What has he—No—why has he become?
And still, with life all spent, so much is future, so little past.
At the doorpost of death, he wonders what of him will last.
We are everyday becoming who we will forever be: a villanelle on age and eternity
