Wednesday, August 06, 2008

but you are the music / while the music lasts

Some Signs That Might Indicate You're Happy...
  • You can't get to sleep at night because you're too excited about the next day.
  • When you finally DO get to sleep, you wake up giggling.
  • For some reason, when you walk, whether it's around your office, down your street or around the neighborhood pond, you can't help but skip.
  • You listen to Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing" continuously for a month.
  • You find yourself getting caught singing really loudly whilst listening to Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing" and other such spirited jigs and reels as you settle into work every morning.
  • It turns out that the giggling isn't just a morning sickness and lasts throughout the day.
  • The music keeps going, even when the i-pod is off.
  • You randomly begin crying happy tears every few days.
And this one goes out to Ballycastle....

And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
When the train starts, and the passengers are setled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left the station
Or who will arrive at any terminus

while the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think, "The past is finished"
Or "The future is before us."
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
"Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: 'on whatever sphere of being
The mind of a man may be intent
At the time of death' -- that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which shall fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare forward.

O voyagers, O seamen,
You who come to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination."
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.

Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.

--t.s.--

3 comments:

cOm said...

thanks, you.
i needed that.

kOm said...

lovely...and poignant...and powerful....

you, my children, are amazing souls...and i am continually impressed by the beauty that is you!

Meghan said...

oh, mother. that's sweet of you to say. but, t.s. wrote that, not me.