A Tucson Sunset — Image by kenne
In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised.
— from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot
Eliot’s Four Quartets rests on my desk not only because I love his poetic masterpiece
but because my first copy was given to me by my brother, Tom, who wrote
“. . . I’ve become obsessed with it . . . with time . . . with memory . . . with language,
all of which are concentrated in this work. It has become such a part of me.”
Tom went on to write — “To use a few of Eliot’s words; ‘As we grow older the world
becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated . . . ‘ Complications, ambiguities, non sequitur
I keep searching for clarity . . . lucidity, and I know each time I seek that, I’ll
become more entangled. No. I’m not bored—just Scarred. I’m moving toward a sort-of silence . . .
I know what you’re thinking: ‘Bull-shit!’ Since the significant things, I want to say
have the wrong inflections, intonations for most arenas of conversation;
I ramble on into oblivion. A series of non sequitur.” (7/27/84)
I miss Tom.
— kenne
He must have been quite a brother (to perceive the value of that treasure). The Four Quartets is certainly worth getting obsessed about! 🙂
I, too, find the depth of this slim volume leaves me stunned, and ‘transported.’ Thanks for sharing Tom’s reflection; Eliot’s words remind us time is a concept to frame by, not a Law…ergo: Tom “is.”