Intriguing verse, Wendy. I really like the second set of words forming a poem in their own right. Very powerful.
I also like the verse you quoted about time. My favourite on that subject is Rudyard Kipling ...
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the world and everything that's in it
And what is more - you'll be a man, my son.
Closely followed by Thomas Mordaunt ...
Sound, sound the clarion! Fill the fife!
Throughout the glorious world proclaim
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Or, as Slim Dusty put it ...
I'd rather be a "has-been" than a "never-was-at-all"!!
Cheers
Shelley