Time -- a Passage by Alexandra Ranieri

Melancholie, Lucas Cranach the Elder. 1532.

Now that I pay closer attention to the passing of the seasons than I have formerly, one would think I’d be better prepared to witness the most dramatic changes—but I am still surprised that the walnuts are filling out, and the berries on the Virginia Creeper are turning black. In fact, time seems to pass more quickly and to become more unwieldy the closer I look at it.

Then again, perhaps that is the best, most desirable outcome from such a study—to realize explicitly that time knows no master, and any attempt to wrangle it into submission is a failure in the shell. Of course we all know this—but how many of us can say we act as though we know it? I certainly can’t.

And yet, how vibrant and assertive everything seems, how very far from ever desiring to sleep! Even as I write, my senses lull me into an illusion of perpetual Summer—and I am sure that when Autumn really does arrive, it shall catch me unawares yet again.

Perhaps this, too, is best. In a world where it is so inevitable that we should become jaded to many things which were once exhilarating, perhaps it is best there should remain one thing which is constantly taking us by surprise.