All You Own Is Now

Grasp this reality

Life’s unpredictability

Given our frailty

And death’s inevitability.

But I have time

There’s much I call mine

I have great health

To go along with my wealth.

Life is now a breeze

I can take my ease

I can securely rest

Free of tension and stress.

Then I heard a sound

So I looked around

No one could be found

None where I was bound.

An incessant knock

Eyes upon the clock

Time slowly ticked away

Could this be the day?

I had much stored up

Now this bitter cup

What a horrid joke!

A dream I had dared to hope.

I thought of all I had

Possessions were my fad

My dream as a little lad

Now had all turned bad.

Now my every thought

Focused on all I’d bought

All I had accumulate

Responsible for my state.

My belongings: no use

My accumulations: refuse

My memories now distant

And wealth: added lament.


 

The knock was time to go

The clock said I told you so

Life now rearranged

Everything suddenly changed.

As for my inventory

Loads of useless money

Property no longer enjoyed

Reduced beneath all I employed.

Was at this very junction

I saw the real problem

I owned absolutely nothing

Zero, zilch, not a thing.

All I had was borrowed

Did not guarantee tomorrow

Couldn’t help in my sorrow

Admitted then in my horror.

All you own is now

Try to grab that now somehow

None of the cherished possessions

Will help in that great recession.

The clock hanging on the wall

Reminds us of that call

That comes to all of us

Then the end of all our fuss.

It’s then we realize

Not speculate or surmise

The hard facts of the matter

The emptiness and clatter.

“What’s the use?” I heard me say

At sunset on that final day

Of all I had achieved

Only to leave so very grieved.

Oh, I thought I possessed much

And lived in accordance with such

Only to find as I closed my eyes

Now is the moment before demise.

Learn the moral of this poem

Let not possessions be the problem

Earned today gone tomorrow

At most they’re only borrowed.

All you have is this moment

Please learn from my lament

All of this life is transient

Apart from now you don’t own a cent.

Stewart Russell © 2014