Nancy L. Meek

DEPEND ON IT

You’ll often think of death as your time draws near,
ticking ever closer every second of the year,
while all around you, life goes on without a pause,
unblinkingly obeying a slew of natural laws.

You’ll marvel at what makes this heavy world go ‘round,
and how it pulls your wrinkles closer to the ground,
not stopping even once to let you catch your breath,
racing even faster, as you crawl toward your death.

You’ll long again for youth and places you have been,
the trees you used to scurry up, alone or with a friend,
when heaven seemed much farther and summers eons long
and you never gleaned a thought of never being strong.

You’ll mark off mental “X”s on the seasons as they pass,
knowing you can’t stop the sand inside the hourglass
as summer days fall swiftly into winter bringing spring,
sweet yet bitterly fleeting, till death has lost its sting.

You’ll never dwell on death again, having once occurred;
the fear of it will not exist, according to God’s Word…
which was in the beginning and will be in the end,
when Jesus Christ returns. On that you can depend!