I’m burning through this time, 

Where has the sand gone?

When has it slip past me? 

 

Even when I try to firmly grip the earth,

It falls loose

Is the fate set aside for me?

Or is it I who is to blame?

 

When I turn, 

The caterpillar is a butterfly,

Then it dies again

 

Apples in the autumn ripen, yet

the ducks in spring are here again

 

The tomorrows I will know,

the faces that will blur

frighten me the most

 

My daughter picks berries in the south,

and it’s dismaying,

knowing she will see a world without me

by her mother’s side

 

Children sit on my lap,

where my knees hurt from arthritis,

ask me to tell them silly stories

until they get distracted

 

There was a world I knew,

where wasn’t I gray, 

and where felt I forever had a place,

 

Now the sand is suffocating me,

And now the time is setting me ablaze

Is today my setting?