The Opening

Come, you whose life has slipped past seventy years: were you asleep, that it all blew away on the wind? You spent your days gathering supplies for staying, but never made a plan for the leaving. On the Day of Judgment, when they set up the market of heaven, they will hand out rank according to good deeds. You'll carry off wealth in measure of what you brought; if you come bankrupt, you'll carry off only shame. For the busier and more crowded the market, the more scattered and anxious the empty-handed feel. If five coins go missing from your fifty, your heart is torn by the claws of grief. Since fifty years have already slipped from your grasp, treasure the few days that remain. If the poor dead still had a tongue, they would cry out in wailing and lament: 'You who are alive, while speech is still possible, don't seal your lips from remembrance like the dead.' Since our time was lost to heedlessness, you, at least, count the few breaths you have as a chance.