Staying Power

Through the numbering of ages and its pages filled with dust

In the din of living’s battle to survive its tick by tock

In the purple mist of morning and the blue bayou of dusk

Through the new soon old and weathered by time’s bold and steady clock

From the bud that bears its beauty to the frail and fallen husk

From the barrenness of winter to the fullness of the shock

Through youth’s learning, yearning stages to the heights of middle age

To the learning, yearning sages where time's willing wise are taught

And have gleaned amidst its weaning, life’s deeper meaning; this cage

Of skin and bone and grin and moan and harboring of thought

Is but a bitty portion of a Greater Pilgrimage

Aha, aha, some laugh and say while others pray a lot

Through the winnowing where whispers murmur moments into years

And all of us come to a flash-point where we realize

How soft-subtle, brief-beautiful a lifetime disappears

And suddenly we sense its breath before our very eyes

Still, through the numbered ages and its ordering of spheres

And surface, sundry changes, God, our changeless God abides

© Janet Martin