SEIZE THE DAY

Time belongs to God.
He invented it 
because he knew 
we would need it
for the progression of days,
the marking of sunrise
and moonrise,
the keeping track of lives
through youth and maturity
and old age - 
innocence, competence,
helplessness.

But time is not ours to manipulate.
We get this much time in a day,
no more, no less.
We tell ourselves that we take it, 
we save it, we spend it,
we keep it.
Not true.

God does not allow it to be taken.
He bestows it.
We can clutch it to ourselves
but while we do this
it runs like water from our hands,
from our lives.

We treasure the hours when the sun is up -
precious, but fleeting.
Oh, to be able to take the hours
of a June day
from the closet in January,
to revel in the long daylight,
keeping the lights off at dinner time
to eat with sunlight shining in,
though snow be on the grass.

				Lucille Murphy