The Hour Glass has always been one of my favorite Masonic symbols. So much so that in my times as Master of a Lodge I often included the litany of the Hour Glass in the funeral or memorial service.
Holding the Hour glass out before me, watching the sand slowly filter down from top to bottom, these words seemed to have an eerie prognostication of life and what a fleeting moment our lives really are.
“Thus wastes man! Today, he puts forth the tender leaves of hope; tomorrow, blossoms and bears his blushing honors thick upon him; the next day comes a frost, which nips the shoot, and when he thinks his greatness is still aspiring, he falls, like autumn leaves, to enrich our mother earth.”
Brother Ezekiel M. Bey has added his poetic thoughts to the meaning of the Hour Glass in verses that should be taken to heart.
Ezekiel M. Bey
The Hour Glass
By Ezekiel M. Bey, FPS
I saw an hour glass with crystal sand
The grains fell through a slim sleek band
Wide at the top, wide at the bottom
Each single grain dropped through its model
Its mark was equal to minute’s lesson
To fill the bottom took sixty seconds
Equivalent to an hour I sat to look
As thoughts revealed a shape it took
Those crystal grains disciplined by law
The law of gravity defined it all
We start from top, end up below
We start from spirit, to give-up ghost
But life is beauty and creativity
Depends on what we chose to be
Life has many choices and one is failure
Success defines a Godly Tailor
However, not all success is God divine
Not all who fails is crucified
It’s just the lessons we’re to define
It’s all what you are deep inside
So life itself is but a moment
So treasure it, solstice to solstice
There comes a time to understand
The last grained dropped in the hour glass
Very nice, Brother.