For We Who Tread The Thread of Numbered Days...

 

The ice-cream truck was such a special thrill last night

to celebrate a whole bunch of family birthdays!

I kept saying 'ch-e-e-e-ese' to try to get their attention, but, well...

they were deliciously distracted! 😋😄

So much birthday-joy already

celebrating so much to be thankful for

to the Giver of life's gift!

Meal cooked by one daughter and son-in-law...(last night)

 

Cake baked by another daughter for double celebration;

both parent's birthdays...

We get stretched out of comfort zones with or without approval’s nod

We start to feel in joints and bones the impact of life’s tug and prod

Futile to wish we could turn back the hands of time taking its toll

But take stock of this skin-bone rack; it is the Chariot of the Soul

We start to feel the subtle keel as scales of age begin to tip

Toward a stage, once so surreal, before our wheels began to slip

The stern command and upper hand of Father’s Time’s insistent gait

No matter how craftily planned, nobody can manipulate

This gift that always steals the young collects itself in numbered years

It peals from daybreak’s golden gong then rolls westward to join its peers

And takes us by age-old surprise; Time is both gentleman and brute

He tames the tiger in our eyes with Wonder’s sweeter substitute

How common day-to-day appears to we, aboard time’s teeming barge

Where one-by-one we disappear as death collects its chosen charge

Where none can order or predict who will be next to disembark

And meet the Giver of life’s gift as time flies upward like a spark

Cherish this gift but bear in mind the fugitive flight of its toll

This dust-to-dust we leave behind is but the Chariot of the Soul

An essence that remains concealed until that solemn, sacred day

When the gift’s Purpose is revealed as mortal wrapping falls away

Because life is a gift from God we do not authorize or choose

The why or wherefore of its rod, the tender tenure of its hues

The precious part of you and I is to revere with grateful praise

The One who grants the grace whereby we tread the thread of numbered days

© Janet Martin

Job 14:5

A person's days are determined; 

you have decreed the number of his months 

and have set limits he cannot exceed.