Footprints in the sands of time...

This week's been different, promising... through calls, messages and memories, I've been reminded of how many people- family and friends I love all over the world. We've reminisced, giggled, talked, typed... These are relationship that have weathered time, and I hope they always will.

We are but the lives we touch over the short span of history that we walk this world.

I've always been amazed by the bonds and friendships my parents have built all over the world over their lives. I realise that my own are no less genuine and meaningful. "It's getting better, growing stronger".

My friend Jane says there's a song for everything. I couldn't agree more as I hummed the lyrics I just added above, but I'll up that. There's a poem for everything too, often duly bastardised by yours truly...

The words that come to mind, again, after I first read them in 1995 in Delft, as I steep in this lovely, present warmth... "and in passing leave behind us, footprints in the sands of time."

Longfellow's truer version of the poem is excerpted below.

A PSALM OF LIFE

TELL me not, in mournful numbers, 

        Life is but an empty dream ! — 

    For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

        And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real !   Life is earnest! 

        And the grave is not its goal ; 

    Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

        Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

        Is our destined end or way ; 

    But to act, that each to-morrow 

        Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 

        And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

    Still, like muffled drums, are beating 

        Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world's broad field of battle, 

        In the bivouac of Life, 

    Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 

        Be a hero in the strife !

    Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 

        Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 

    Act,— act in the living Present ! 

        Heart within, and God o'erhead !

    Lives of great men all remind us 

        We can make our lives sublime, 

    And, departing, leave behind us 

        Footprints on the sands of time ;

    Footprints, that perhaps another, 

        Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

        Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing, 

        With a heart for any fate ; 

    Still achieving, still pursuing, 

        Learn to labor and to wait.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)