What Time Leaves Behind Poem by ashok jadhav

Time moves without announcement or regret.
It does not mark the day it takes our strength,
Nor signal when the body starts to fail.
It works like water on the patient stone,
So gently that the change escapes the eye
Until the shape we knew is altered wholly.
We count our lives in milestones and in years,
In birthdays marked by candles growing few.
Yet time does not remember any date;
It carries kings and beggars with the same
Indifference that seasons show the leaves.
What blooms must fade, not out of cruelty,
But by the law that makes all blooming possible.
Still, knowing this, we learn to treasure breath,
To hold a hand as if it might be last.
Mortality gives weight to every hour,
And in that weight, our fragile meaning forms.