"In the early hours of the day"

In the early hours of the day, on a brisk autumn morning,
I sat on the steps leading up to the monument.
I sat and wondered at the world.
The minuteness of everything was so poignant.
A rustling of leaves, the whistling in the wind.
A father and daughter came into my view,
and at them too I wondered and pondered.
The little girl was so full of life and innocence,
the father visibly content and young as well.
What was their world like, I thought to myself?
Different from mine? The same? Something in between?
A microcosm of their own they had certainly.
I sat and watched and contemplated
on the unknown nuances of their unknown lives.
The breeze picked up a little as I sat there thinking,
reminding me that change is the only real constant in life.
How many changes had there been in my own short life?
How many of them I wished had never happened?
I did not know, but at this I wondered.
The day before, now a memory, was in itself
a moment in time distinct from all others.
Self-contained and self-defined.
A past and fleeting moment in time.
And today and tomorrow just the same.
Time, the king of all things.
Destroyer and creator.
There is nothing, really, to life but time and change.
Or so I figured, there on the steps, on a Sunday morning,
as I watched the world and it watched me.

M.M. — 18-Mar-2016