Art thou pale for weariness of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth it's constancy? Thou chosen sister of the Spirit, that gazes on thee til in thee it pities. . . -Shelley (To The Moon)

Thursday, October 8, 2009

"In Our First World, Shall We Follow The Deception of The Thrush?" - TS Eliot


Welcome - the sun and moon salute your breathing being, as do I! I use a quote from "Four Quartets" by TS Eliot as the title for this poem because of a coincidence. I don't remember the exact coincidence, but it had to do with the concept of eternity. When I was a little girl I used to imagine that there were infinite parallel universes before I went to sleep and I would stay up late trying to grasp the idea. This poem came from those nights.
The above painting is by Josef Albers. It reminds me a bit of parallel universes.
Fond farewell. I hope you return.


In Our First World, Shall We Follow The Deception of The Thrush?" - TS Eliot



The only place where time does not exist

is where past, present and future
present themselves a fixed point -----
a ball of time, forever
at the same time, a small

portion of now.


Some poets, like Shakespeare,
have seen the truth in mirrors
the truth being a dance

a dance of light across glass artifacts,
presenting change and only change
while it (truth) remains unscathed.


Truth, like spiders' legs
casting minute shadows on speckled fossils
attracts our eye toward the stone.

So why should I speak of what might have been?
Our memory will not be altered, and
I haven't enough of a grip on reality

to deploy the spotlight filters
so I will leave the dust
on the roses in the bowl
graciously or gracelessly - I don't know -
undisturbed.



Age will tint them brown,
a shade already tanning pages
in my antique library, already
wearing through the grass. . .
the pressed path I pace at daily intervals. . .
over these crisp petals

I hold an immemorial mirror
reflecting reflections themselves
showing only to the soul:

Past happiness, fact-less and cracking,

bringing back a second joy -
still distant to the point of madness -



Gardens, like ceremonial bracelets
fringe my footsteps,

diamond-like in dew - birthwaters.








No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers