For Ranjo... on his birthday.

The final sleep creeps upon us inexhorably with a glacial attentiveness seasoned by seasons. Even the hardened resolve of mountainous cascading rock must eventually bow to the will of ending in a corroding, settling penitence. It is an ever-patient walk that eventually ebbs with brittle ivory swiftness. It lies adjacent and in direct contrast to our furtive belief that our passage through this one existence will be a glass filled with steady accomplishment and engraved blandishments and yet how often do we remain tethered to the grounded stakes of our own ill-serving langor. It's a race with an ever-fixed finish line that is crossed by all yet never won, its track stained with the treads of turns untaken. A fleeting rush of water past ankles in a knees-deep stream... the grit of sand through desperate knuckles... a challenge un-challenged... a permanence lost. With the asterisk that is our lives what have we carved into the stone sidewalk that stretches past both horizons? Is the cut deep enough to be noticed or the smudge of a cigarette butt washed away with the first rain? Do you finally go to that sleep gleefully empty of promises unkept or will regret light the night and never let you rest? Time may tell. But we won't hear it.

So Jeff, I hear you're having a birthday.

Tick-tock.