Life is Short

My night-blooming cereus bloomed last night. Its petals started popping apart at dusk, and by dark it was fully open and pumping its fragrance into the room.

I was awake at 2 a.m. and it was starting to look tired. By daylight, it had become a corpse. Life is short for night-blooming cereus--a single night.

Life is short for us human folk as well.

So you should view this fleeting world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

                                                                     --Diamond Sutra

Deceased Cereus