Time

We use the same standard
to measure time wherever we go.
How we perceive time
can be quite different and variable.
When life is happy and carefree,
time runs like an escaped rabbit;
when we must work hard day and night,
time moves at the pace of a caterpillar.
In our youth, we care very little that
springtime waits for no one;
now with white hair, we realize that
good times may never again come.
At eighty, it shouldn't be too late to study
like Che Yin* by a bag of fireflies.
Half of the sky often glows in red
before the sun is ready to set.

*Che Yin was a fourth-century scholar who studied under the light of glowworms in his youth.