I know I ll live longer than creatures and seas

A Greenland shark in Arctic, icy seas 
Lives four long centuries in silent ease. 
It swims in depths where endless calm is found, 
A ruler of the ages and the blue around.

The urchin, and its giant sister too — 
The turtle never feels life’s fleeting view. 
Two hundred years they wander, slow and free, 
While generations pass like waves at sea.

But humans, though we understand the years, 
Live just a moment — fragile, brief, appears. 
A mollusk in the ocean outlives all, 
While human hearts in sorrow rise and fall.

The sequoia stands and watches epochs fade, 
A thousand years for her — a breath, a shade. 
And our own fate is bitter, hard to bear, 
As if from dust and ashes shaped from air.

But God did not create us just to die — 
He wrote eternity in you and I. 
And on this Earth, beneath the sky’s embrace, 
True wonders wait to meet us face to face.

I’ll live far longer than that ancient shell, 
Forget the grief I once knew all too well. 
The Maker promised — and the day will rise 
When endless life will open to our eyes.

I know I’ll live longer than creatures and seas, 
Longer than forests and the centuries’ breeze. 
When Earth is renewed and all sorrow will cease, 
I’ll live here forever in sunlight and peace.