Time

By: Ethan He ‘28

The wind tears and tugs at the canopies,
howls through trees, 
Pulling down what was once green.
Leaves drift, scatter, then disappear,
All that’s left is the debris, 
Swirling with the ashes
 A low, drawn-out murmur fills the air –
Hiss, hiss –
The sound of time is heard.

The sky turns pale and thin  
As daylight is swiftly fading.
The persistent frost begins to seep, 
The earth prepares for its sleep.

Beyond the gray, 
Birds flee, 
Leaving the silence to me.
Each echo, soft yet clear, 
Reminds me – time is here.

For youth, like autumn’s flame,
Can never stay the same,
Though burns bright, then fades away,
Its glow consumed by gray. 
It fades, it burns, it dies, 
But from the ashes, something will rise –

A root, a seed, a spark in spring,
Quietly remembering everything.
Though time may take, it also gives,
And what was lost still somehow lives.
Yet in the endless flow, 
New lives begin to grow.
What’s lost is shaped again, 
Changed, but not in vain.

Time destroys, but restores –
It creates wounds, then heals the sores.
It breaks, it bends, it mends, 
Decides all fates, then recreates.
Through every loss, through every growth –
Nothing can defeat the hands of time.