“Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint -
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardor and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unintended
Moment, the moment in and out of time.
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightening,
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.
Here the impossible Union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement -
Driven by daemonic, chthonic
Powers. And right action is freedom
From past and future also
Never here to be realized;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew tree)
The life of significant soil.”
