First, the cry of a newborn,
Serenading the world with its first song,
Eager to write its own story,
Unaware of the joys, battles and glory.

— ✦ —

Then it crawls,
Takes its first steps,
Falls, gets up,
And tries again.

Childhood waltzes by,
With it, a world of innocence,
Of laughter and scraped knees,
Of bedtime stories and limitless dreams.

— ✦ —

Then adolescence arrives,
And suddenly, the world feels bigger.
Dreams become louder,
Questions even deeper,
As the dance of change
Helps us discover.

Adulthood struts in,
With its never-ending bills,
Responsibility in the bin,
And suddenly,
Life is no longer a thrill.

— ✦ —

Then, almost without warning,
The steps become slower,
Hair turns grey,
The hands that once held us steady
Begin to need holding too.

So we look back
At laughter and tears,
Love and losses,
Moments gone too soon.

— ✦ —

Perhaps that is life,
A passage we never truly understand
Until we have travelled so far
And realise how quickly
The journey passed us by.

And just like that,
We find ourselves
At the end of the beginning,
Simply passing through,
The passage of life.