Essence of Existence

Break of new day, heavy with gray of rain

Dapples Duty's terrain as dark subsides

And hills spill over with time’s youngest tides

They wash across the world toward the drain

…that gapes, even as newness drapes the old

And shapes from yester-fancying Today

Already its mad rush of gray on gray

Eddies and swirls into the steady hold

…of moments lent and spent, a synchronous

Exchange that none can fully feel or grasp

This Essence of Existence girds each gasp

Where life’s verge merges with death’s impetus

…and splurge of gray surges to biding blue

We, hope-and-dreaming pioneers embark

On its current of daylight growing dark

Like sailors ever caught twixt old and new

© Janet Martin