Memento Mori

I may as well say it now: the news about Terry Pratchett is breaking my heart. Part of the reason I've been ripping out so much verbiage for the last week is that I can't bear to sit idle when I should be writing-- wasting moments, of which I have so many, and he so few.

Of course, there's no guarantee that I have that many, either. Anything can happen: Allah alone knows the future, and while He has chosen to give glimpses of it to certain people, I ain't one of them. I could get hit by a meteorite tomorrow, or be diagnosed with an incurable tumor the next day.

We shouldn't need the reminders, but apparently we do.

Reposted from KFI:

This moment, here, is all we have to live--
to reminisce, appreciate, forgive--
and there are no exchanges or returns.
Time runs out like water from a sieve
or refugees when some poor city burns.
The last reward that no-one ever earns
is extra time. No extra innings run,
the final lesson no-one ever learns:
how little time we have beneath the sun.
We all protest: "It can't be! I'm not done!"
when Atropos with fatal silver shears
approaches. All the time that Clotho spun
we spent or squandered. Now the living years
have dwindled to a point. This moment, here.