each at its own hour

The grass does not refuse
To flourish in the spring wind;
The leaves are not angry
At falling through the autumn sky.
Who with whip or spur
Can urge the feet of Time?
The things of the world flourish and decay,
Each at its own hour. ~LiPo

Trans: Arthur Waley, The Poet Li Po II. 26. The Sun Gutenberg.org

“The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflections on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep crease scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.” ~Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea