For most of us, There is only the unattended Moment, The moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.
— from Four Quartets, “The Dry Salvages” by T. S. Eliot
"Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
At human folly, and the laceration
Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others' harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue."
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable.
For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment, the moment in and out of time, The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses; and the rest Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action. The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Fallen Leaves On Mt. Lemmon — Photo-Artistry 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. In a warm haze the sultry light Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone. The dahlias sleep in the empty silence. Wait for the early owl.
Wildflowers on Mt. Lemmon, Santa Catalina Mountains — Images by kenne
What is the late November doing With the disturbance of the spring And creatures of the summer heat, And snowdrops writhing under feet And hollyhocks that aim too high Red into grey and tumble down Late roses filled with early snow? Thunder rolled by the rolling stars Simulates triumphal cars Deployed in constellated wars Scorpion fights against the sun Until the Sun and Moon go down Comets weep and Leonids fly Hunt the heavens and the plains Whirled in a vortex that shall bring The world to that destructive fire Which burns before the ice-cap reigns
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
Tom’s Signature
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)
There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing,
No end to the withering of withered flowers,
To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless,
To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage, . . .
“Time present and time past . . .” — Image by kenne
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind.
The tolling bell Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried Ground swell, a time Older than the time of chronometers, older Than time counted by anxious worried women Lying awake, calculating the future, Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel And piece together the past and the future, Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception, The future futureless, before the morning watch When time stops and time is never ending
Old Western Morning (Sonoran Desert) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Two-Windows (Tucson Arizona) — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Voiceless Wailing — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Esperero Trail In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
Exploring the Desert Purple Haze — Image by kenne
“Time present and time past . . .” — Image by kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 