“Around the Corner”

“Around the Corner”

Several years ago I ran across this poem and have found it to be a reminder of how quickly life happens. Let us use today and contact those around us to lift them up and see how we can assist them.


Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end;

Yet days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it, a year is gone,

And I never see my old friend’s face.

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men:

Tired of playing a foolish game,

Tired of trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow,” I say, “I will call on Jim

just to show that I am thinking of him.”

But tomorrow comes—and tomorrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner!—yet miles away …

“Here’s a telegram, Sir,”… “Jim died today.”

And that’s what we get and deserve in the end:

Around the corner, a vanished friend.

—Charles Hanson Towne


“For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14; ESV)

Just some thoughts,