Life is measured not by the breaths we take
but by the moments that take breath away,
and as long as we’re awake
we should appreciate them, night and day.
Some think Solomon equated all
the breaths we take with hevel, vanity,
before we vanish with a dying fall,
expressing thus the value of humanity.
Do not regard life in this way. Each breath
we take provides us with an opportunity
to put off what is quite inevitable, death,
when on its die-by-date we lose immunity.
George Carlin said: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
