The Measure of Time

Time does not pass.
It accumulates.

In the grain of wood,
in the quiet erosion of stone,
in the subtle shift of things
that never announce their change.

Nothing asks to be remembered.
Nothing insists on meaning.

And still,
everything is altered.

A room remains a room
until one day
it no longer holds the same air.

A name remains a name
until it is spoken
without recognition.

There is no moment
that declares the turning.

Only a sequence
so precise
it becomes invisible.

What endures
is not what resists time,
but what accepts
its silent authority.

And in that acceptance
something else appears—

not permanence,
but a different kind of staying.

One that does not depend
on being held.

One that does not ask
to be returned to.

Only to be
as it has become.