When Time Has Tasted You

If you call an orange apple,

will its juice not stain your chin?

Names don’t change the nature—

truth still testifies within.

Those born close in time and turning

ripen like grapes upon the vine;

your true companions bud beside you,

ripening right in celestial time.

Hold your head too high, you’ll miss the ground

and maybe step in shit;

hold your gaze too low, you’ll miss

the sunrise as it splits.

Side streets, backroads, red roads,

golden, winding, stoned ones too—

choose your path and don’t look back;

the brave-of-heart are far and few.

Time has had a taste of you;

it will not loosen from its hold.

The faster that you chase it,

the quicker all your days grow old.

Dropping grains, the ancient sands

fall on beaches made of glass—

sharp, ornate remnants washing up,

ghostly treasures from the past.

And if the hounds of hell

come snarling at your heel,

remember what you carry—

remember what is real:

You are daughter, son, and spark

of the everlasting gods,

reflection, echo, emanation

of the One from which you’re wrought.