A headstone is just a bookmark in our unfinished lives.
—Terri Guillemets
A headstone is just a bookmark in our unfinished lives.
—Terri Guillemets
We all have those moments in our lives that transform us — something small or big happens and we’re never the same.
Sometimes we remember these moments in our personal histories as leaps, or falls — or just serendipitous wanderings — from one life segment to the next.
Or we mark them like stars on a map of self — constellations of life-changing moments. Some seem crazy small and wouldn’t even register as stars in others’ systems. But in our own they blaze bright.
Or maybe our days are raindrops and our lives rolling clouds and these moments are lightning strikes. Raindrop days, lightning-strike moments.
These maps and moments imprint our souls, our minds, our memorious hearts. Our stories of self are made from them.
—Terri Guillemets
Aging is an exponential clock — ticking in runaway years.
—Terri Guillemets
the body is a clock —
bones tick and tock
years gather in flesh
an alarm set for death
—Terri Guillemets
the years sprint, sail, drift, fly —
days melt into sleep
decades we no longer know
by taste or smell, yes
but hard fast memories tend not to keep —
youth lives on — yet, is long gone
birds chirp each spring anew
but our hearts sing the same shades
of childhood colors we once knew
—Terri Guillemets
Time doesn’t tick
it doesn’t tock —
it flows relentless
it is we who chop
its water with our oars
—Terri Guillemets
Over time, the hurt doesn’t hurt. Only regret does.
—Terri Guillemets
“Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.”
—Robert Brault
Why do I love clouds? You can’t save a cloud as you can save a leaf or a flower or a rock — clouds are now! Clouds are the carpe diem of nature.
—Terri Guillemets
A lover counts time in kisses, not years.
—Terri Guillemets
A clock is ticking
in my living room —
I never even noticed
that it makes noise —
my mind is ticking,
my heart is ticking.
Everything quiet
is audible at 3 a.m.
—Terri Guillemets
flowers don’t open to the clock
but to the sunshine spontaneous—
for modern humans that manner
of instinct is now extraneous
—Terri Guillemets
Don’t let the past steal your present.
—Terri Guillemets