The Glimpse
I catch an unexpected glimpse
of far-off rooves, black windows and
some towers and arches, chimney-tips . . .
and I am in a foreign land.
I do not try to understand
this transportation (for I see
the same as I have often scanned . . . )
but let the newness conquer me.
It could be anywhere, man-made
for habitation, man-designed
for to-ing, fro-ing, worship, trade
and learning. And I see, half-blind,
a city into which you gaze.
A different time of day, you travel
a different tack, down different ways –
with the odd moment on a level.
At such an instant, though in space
a country and a sea apart –
a place becomes a different place –
we meet, admitted to the heart.
And no coincidence is here;
for while one sleeps the other may
be lost and found. What is most near
makes no account of night and day.
*
Together and forever now
we shall continue what was good.
In Eden first did I and thou
interpret tune of flower and wood,
and find the song that water made,
and so, through the first years of man
a music took us. As it played
a kind of savage dance began:
wind and thunder, fire and rain
deafened and rang and blew; we saw
a war-cry blossom in the brain;
the moon-god shriek; long columns pour
through tropic and harsh waste for food.
We saw the patience of a few
become a whole tribe’s fortitude.
We heard new words for things that grew;
and saw the frame of laws encage;
and listened to new learning’s cry;
saw gold recovered on the page;
saw air-ships penetrate the sky;
saw comets tracked; saw hearts replaced;
saw money flood; and rung on rung
the ladder snapped of human taste;
heard symphonies of robots sung;
we saw the Earth become a star
where no more humans are; we sailed
to where new life-forms singing are . . .
still our companionship prevailed.
*
When you look up from task or book,
or nothing much at all, and see
an archetypal hint or look
presented by normality,
a sharply-curving olive-tree
that bears the fruit of aeons ago,
the corner of a room – and free
a presence often not let go –
could it not be a city stands
of life, of which we were a part?
And now we live in different lands,
perhaps pin-pointed on a chart
that stretches over time, through space
unseen, we still together stay –
so I looked up, and seemed to face
Eternity . . . and looked away.
