Cropredy Canal

Croppe Ridig

        Love is most nearly itself

        When here and now cease to matter

                T. S. Eliot - Four Quartets: East Coker

Time past has ceased to pass:

this is the story of the water.

Our love is like a looking-glass

in which we do not see the future

—all that falls, what will not last—

only the here and now that matter.

This is the teaching of the stone,

which knows the lesson of the lichen:

the stillness of the buried bone;

the blood that will no longer quicken;

the lover who is long since gone;

the children who will one day sicken;

how love, at length, is overgrown;

how every lover is twice smitten.

Only reflect on being still;

picture the bloom not going over.

So much alive, with time to kill …

This day will do, for this day’s lover:

this sun and air, this glorious hill,

this sky, these clouds, this simple river.

Into the Woods

Antiphon

        for my friend, Angela,

        who always answers when I call

Listen! It is the morning singing,

making sure of others, making others sure of I.

How empty stands the wood, absent of echoes?

How light would being be if not for shade?

Shortly will be an end to longing,

and all birds leaving, having had their say.

How will you reach me through the dark and distance?

How can I guide you to the place I made?

Hear me, in this polyphony,

for only I am as I am and know the tune I know.

But how will I meet you if I cannot see you?

And what if I lose you if by chance you strayed?

Calling. It is the yearn of ages:

The need to know each day how I am not alone.

How shall I find, then, the strength for such singing,

the way I can bear it if the day should fade?