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Boxcars of Beryl

Glacially,
The years slip
Slowly toward the past,
Eroding life,
Scarring time,
Breaking up realities
Like granite;
Leaving 
In the troubled wake
Of ebbing time
The detritus
Of shattered lives,
Broken hearts;
That track of tears
That trangresses
The joys of life.
Subtle,
It runs underground
In the mind,
Rising to the surface
Of our lives,
Irregular as a butterfly,
Occasionally.
The inexorable years –
Waves lapping at the shores
Of eternity –
Drag us toward the shade
Of those dark and somber sands.
Maturity is not wisdom;
It is not dignity.
Maturity is resignation,
A reconciling of a lifetime
Of unspoken fears
Of a solitary end.
Maturity involves
An acceptance of the horror
Of the grave,
So that one may place
A more realistic
Value
On temporal trash,
All to be rejected
By the unforgiving grave,
The uncompromising grave.

Such is life.
Unspiritual life.
It wears
The cloak of giddy denial
To every party;
The dark hat of deception
To every dance,
And a veil
Of fear upon the heart
That whispers
In the colder winds of guilt
And shame,
“Too late! Too late! O, too late!

Diamonds in the dust,
Emeralds sparkling
In the grass,
Gold, gleaming
From the crevices
And the crevasses
Of our mountainous trials.
Boulders of rubies,
Boxcars of beryl,
All within our reach.
Opportunities we must
Miss in order to comtemplate
Our poverty
And our misery.
Now I mean to pout!

But those there are who go
At life
With hammer and spike and pan;
Industrious,
Excited,
Turning every stone,
Cracking every rock,
Lighting every crevice
And crevasse,
Gathering every gem,
And even the dust of gems,
Enriching themselves,
Mindless of the tomb.
These are those 
Whose eyes are on the prize,
Living life
To the full.
“But forget the brass 
Ring; I’d rather have
The gold!”

If
The elements melt
With fervent heat;
Where is the value of the gold?
What sort of ruby must she be
Who stands against the glow
Of judgment’s fire?
There is the rub,
That blister on the heel
Of life.
We labor long
To gather only ash
When seek we what
Is seen
Both “here” and “now.”
To face the fear,
To mock the gaping grave,
One must be
Not brave,
But wise,
Redeeming the time
Against the evil day.

Of all the gems
Unseen by all the eyes,
Of all the glacial trails
In every passing life;
Of diamond dews
And emerald isles,
Or that silver moon on high,
Those golden years
Now drawing nigh,
A’gleam with a cache
Of treasure that can’t be lost or sold
Nor seen with mortal eye,
Of all that is or was
Or might have been,
Or tale I might have told,
Of every sainted work
Or foul sin,
You, my Dear, are my own, my private stash,
My rarest, purest gold.!

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