One Day

How often do people say

“There aren’t enough hours in a day”?

But imagine a moment there were:

Picture a day with unlimited hours

For the sweetest of meals and the hottest of showers,

A day without limits of what you can learn,

How hard you can play, how much you can earn,

A day you can retry as much as you like;

You can say something stupid or fall off your bike

Without any fear, any anger or sorrow

Because all who saw you are now in tomorrow

While you’re still enjoying a day with no end

Side by side with a lover, a parent, a friend.

Now what if this day that went on and on

Had many an evening and many a dawn

And seasons and fashions pass by as you walk

At a slow, steady pace with no thought of a clock,

And you had sunny weather and hail and snow

And famine and fortune and high things and low?

That day went so long you were gray in the hair

And your skin started sagging and you’re just halfway there

To the end of a day with no finish in sight,

Growing old, doing good, all the while feeling right.

You remember a detail you knew all along

About what will come when the long day is gone:

When you see the last touchdown and rise of the sun

You’ll not shed a tear that you only got one;

You’ll feel no envy for those who keep going

Because this whole day, your whole life, you’ve lived knowing

You have all the time you will need, so you say

“Thank you for a life lasting only one day.”