Title: "The Clock Of Redemption" Poem by ashok jadhav

(A lone figure stands under a dim spotlight, the sound of a ticking clock echoing in the silence. Their voice starts soft, almost trembling, and gradually rises into impassioned resolve.)
Do you know… do you know what it feels like to watch life slip through your fingers like grains of sand? To stand at the edge of your own hesitation, paralyzed by doubt, fear, pride… and then… to realize… the moments you could have seized… the words you should have spoken… the bridges you should have crossed… have all grown cold with neglect?
I was late—late to apologize, late to act, late to live… as though the world had a timetable and I had missed my train. I watched as opportunities passed by like strangers on the street, and I told myself, "Tomorrow… tomorrow I will be brave. Tomorrow I will try."
And yet, here I am. Here I am, trembling, ashamed, weary… but here. And in this trembling… I hear it, faint yet unwavering: Better late than never.
Yes… late. But not too late. Not yet too late to mend what was broken, to reach what was lost, to speak the truth that my silence betrayed. Better to falter now than to have never tried at all! Better to rise from the ashes of my hesitation than to rot in the ruins of regret!
So I step forward… clumsy, unpolished, but alive. I step forward… with hands that have trembled for too long, and with a heart that has waited in shadow. And I will speak, and I will act, and I will love… because I have learned that timing is not always measured by the clock, but by courage… by the will to move, even when fear has held you captive.
Better late than never… Yes. Let that be my battle cry, my hymn, my salvation. For as long as I breathe, as long as I have strength enough to try, I am not defeated. I am not lost. I am simply… arriving… finally, belatedly, but arriving.
(Pauses. Takes a slow, steady breath. The ticking clock seems to grow softer as a faint smile crosses their face.)
Better late than never. Always.