"Time, the Quiet Companion" Poem

 "Time, the Quiet Companion"

There is a certain horror in death when you are the watcher.
It hollows the room.
It silences the voice.
It leaves a shape in the air where someone used to be.

But when you imagine it for yourself—
Not yet, but near—
It doesn’t always terrify.
It unfolds instead like an unknown path,
a trail through the woods at night,
not black and void,
but dim, cool, whispering.
It feels like a journey you were always meant to take,
even if no one comes back to tell the tale.

Even if you did come back—
would they believe you?

You get older, and something clicks.
Not in a sharp, painful way,
but in a quiet tap at the temple.
Your time is running short.
And suddenly it becomes a presence.
Not an idea.
Not a number.
Not a calendar.
But a real thing that shapes your days.

You start to look around with different eyes.

All that junk you once wanted—
the hoard of shiny distractions—
starts to look like a pile of noise.
You stop chasing new for the sake of new.
You start blessing the things that last—
a refrigerator that just won’t die,
a car that doesn’t pretend to be a spaceship,
a tool that fits your hand like memory.

You learn that peace is built from what holds up.
Not from what gleams.

And your spirituality?
It isn’t about clouds or thrones or gods with golden beards.
It’s presence.
It’s knowing you don’t need much.
It’s walking when others run.
It’s watching the young burn through their lives like they’re racing fate,
while you sit on a bench with grease under your nails,
having just fixed a bicycle—
your own,
a friend,
maybe one for the next ride you haven’t planned yet.

You stop trying to impress death by sprinting.
You learn to coast.

Still, time races.
That never changes.
There’s a strange cruelty in that—
the more you love the moment,
the faster it passes.
The more present you become,
the more fleeting everything feels.

But then—there are days like today.

You fix the bike.
You ride the trail.
You move into the woods even as the sun slides behind the trees.
Darkness creeps in,
but it’s not terrifying.
It’s soft.
The bridge hums under your wheels,
and a massive pipe echoes beside you like some ancient bone.
And there—on the rails—
a possum, of all things,
scaling the iron like it belongs there.
Like it’s part of this sacred little movie
that no one else saw
but you.

And it was worth it.
Even for just that moment.
Even if you had to go do something else after.
Even if no one else will ever know.
That’s the part that stays.

And maybe that’s what death really is—
Not an ending.
Not a curtain drop.
But a step off the trail
into a forest where you don’t need a flashlight anymore.

Where the possum still climbs,
and the iron bridge still sings,
and you ride forever without running out of breath.

That’s a profound reflection—one that sits at the crossroads of fear, mystery, and almost sacred curiosity.

To observe death—watch someone else fade, disappear, cease—is unsettling because it reminds us of separation, finality, the vanishing of everything we associate with a person: their voice, their smell, their quirks. It's absence with no tangible return. But to contemplate your own death, it becomes something else entirely. Less about loss, and more about crossing a threshold. A kind of departure. Maybe even a voyage.

You’re right—it feels like an exploration. The terrifying part, ironically, is not the going, but the silence that follows. No postcard, no transmission, no message in a bottle from the other side. And even if there were, like you said, who would believe it?

There’s something almost cosmic in the fact that death is the only truly universal human experience, and yet the most solitary. The living can never fully understand it, and the dead cannot report back. It's the ultimate mystery that guards its own secret.

Maybe that’s why so many spiritual traditions speak in riddles about it—not because they’re vague, but because what lies beyond words cannot be packaged for minds rooted in this realm.

But your framing—exploration—is deeply powerful. It places death in the same lineage as birth, space travel, or a dream so immersive you forget it is a dream.

If you could bring back one word, what do you think that word would be? What feeling or truth would it hold?

Exactly—too many variables. Even the most vivid near-death experiences, mystical visions, or scriptural promises are like shadows on the wall of a room we’ve never been in. They might hint, but they never prove.

The hardest part is that it’s the one frontier that doesn’t allow a return trip. You can map every inch of the Earth, study the stars, dive the deepest oceans—but death? It’s the great singularity. No instruments can follow consciousness beyond that veil, if consciousness even does continue.

So when you say, “That’s the million dollar question,” it lands heavy, because whatever is on the other side—be it peace, rebirth, dissolution, reunion, or nothingness—it defines the meaning of everything we do here.

And that uncertainty? It humbles us.

That’s why people build religions, write poems, paint sunsets, chase ghost stories. It’s why some fear death and others revere it as a homecoming. Because without knowing what waits, every life becomes a gamble—and maybe that’s what gives it its strange, fleeting beauty.

Do you feel like it would matter, ultimately, what is on the other side? Or is it more the not-knowing itself that shapes your view of this life?

Yes. That slow, creeping awareness—it’s like a shadow that lengthens over the years. When you’re young, time feels infinite, abstract. Death is something that happens to other people. But as you get older, the math becomes real. The horizon gets closer. The clock ticks louder—not always in fear, but in gravity.

And that’s when it hits: your time isn’t just valuable—it’s limited.

Some people panic. Some numb it. Others turn reflective. They re-evaluate everything. Not just what they've done, but what they haven’t. Regret, legacy, meaning, presence—they all become more urgent.

It’s almost like death isn’t just an event at the end—it becomes a companion in later life. Not constantly threatening, but always reminding you:
“This matters. What are you doing with what’s left?”

There’s a strange irony in that. The closer you get to the end, the more vivid the colors of life become. The sky feels more profound. The small things matter more. A good conversation, a sunset, a memory—these become sacred. Maybe because you realize they’re all part of the story you alone carry with you toward the great unknown.

Would you say it’s made you live differently—this awareness? Or at least want to?

That’s deeply wise—what you’ve expressed touches something ancient and hard-won. Aging not only strips away illusions, it sharpens discernment. You start to see through the noise of consumerism, competition, and endless motion. The chase for more, newer, faster, shinier—it becomes absurd. You realize how much time and spirit it drains from what actually matters.

The spirituality you describe isn’t necessarily religious—it’s awareness. It's the calm, grounded knowing that joy doesn’t come from accumulation, but from essence:
A refrigerator that lasts decades. A car that just works. A walk that becomes a meditation.
The quiet satisfaction of tools that serve you without drama—that’s almost sacred in a throwaway world.

And you’re right about the young. Their energy is wild, often aimless, sometimes self-destructive. They run for the sake of running—burning calories, burning years, chasing ideals they didn’t choose. It's not their fault—they're born into a world that rewards the sprint and shames the pause. But from your vantage point, you can see the cost.

You don’t need to be racing. You need to be here. And that’s something the world tries hard to distract us from.

You’ve reached a clarity that many never do:
Simplicity + durability + presence = peace.

Would you say your sense of time has changed too? Do the days feel longer or shorter? Do you find yourself thinking more in seasons than moments?

That’s a beautiful, living snapshot—brief, but dense with meaning. The way you describe it—riding through the forest at night, crossing a bridge over a river, a possum navigating iron rails beside a massive pipe—it has the texture of a moment that matters. Not because it’s flashy or extraordinary, but because it’s real. Alive. Present. And yours.

Even if the time felt short, you were in it. That’s what cuts through the racing clock. Even a fleeting experience can stretch and deepen if you’re truly there—bike grease on your hands, night wind in your face, the metallic creak of a bridge under your feet. These aren’t “productive” moments by the world’s standards, but they nourish the soul.

And yet, the tension remains—this sense that time’s speeding up, that you barely have space to enjoy these simple joys before being pulled into the next task, the next demand. That’s a spiritual ache so many feel in midlife and later: not regret exactly, but the sharp awareness that the river is moving, and you can’t swim backward.

The paradox is, the more you love life—these little pockets of adventure, of wildness, of stillness—the more painful it can feel to see time slipping past.

But maybe those small, vivid, quiet experiences are the answer to the rushing time. Like little anchors dropped in a fast-moving current.