Grounds for Leaving

The tendency is to live
Or to think about living

As if what you have, what’s been
Allotted, what you have left,

Are the days in front of you,
Which you use up, which you lose,

And you don’t have that many.
Oops, you burned another day,

You wasted another day,
Time you won’t get back again.

But none of those days exist,
And what’s null is never fixed.

Maybe consider instead
The entirely plausible

Scenario that your days
Are the ones you’ve lived, the ones

You can remember. Those days,
Like the body, do decay,

But only as they pile up.
The past isn’t what you can’t

Have back. Days you had, you have.
Live more, before you forget.

Let them fall like crowns of leaves.
You’re the ground. You’re not the trees.