Meditations in Fast Times: 25. If there is a reality we cannot bear

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                25.

If there is a reality we cannot bear,
it is the unknown tomorrow.

Indeed, it is the menace of tomorrow that drives
the need to consult apostles and prophets,
to follow gurus and miracle workers,
seek out faith healers, politicians,
spell-casters and semioticians.

This urge to cast runes,
read palms or plot the stars,
reaching back to reclaim
a nostalgic vision of the past
and cast it forward on a formless future
provides entertainment, certainly,
and obsessive preoccupation,
but is a wasted exercise,
in which we miss this moment.

But this moment is where science and magic lie.

The Divine can only meet you
in the abyss of unincorporated now.

The ardent heart enters the sacred wood,
answering the call of the music of the spheres,
offering the only gift there is to give: selfless self.

The right action
of the ardent heart
meets unforeseen moment
in surrender
and is nearly subsumed,
but awakens to a newer identity.

Turns out,
potential and possibility are bits of future
that comingle during the indelible union
of ardent heart with unforeseen moment;
an infinitude of such meetings,
where opposites cannot avoid attraction,
are creation incarnate or, if you will,
a live concert of the continuous music
of every iteration of the very next now.

That’s how it works.
All the rest is a waste of effort,
for time will not be outwitted.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 24. Many are we, but one

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                24.

Many are we, but one;
myriad leaves flow from one root,
as all bow in the sun,
entrained we are to follow suit.

They who sing, dance or write,
by such action serve all the world;
changed, all are made bright,
with diamond intersections knurled.

Together, into age from youth,
as the pages turn through time,
we, entangled, form truth;
we, knotted inextricably, rhyme.

To live is to love and share;
earthly meaning, laid bare.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 23. Not at the farther shore

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                23.

Not at the farther shore,
but the nearest one,
Not only for the ducks,
but for every living thing,
life-giving bread is cast.

When clouds are full,
they empty their tears
upon the grounded years
of all our knowing,
a gift and a blessing.

Loaves divided with love,
fragments of fish add flavor;
give a portion to seven
or even one thousand,
for who knows about tomorrow.

Sacrifice cannot be denied;
we receive only by giving,
water and fire cannot destroy
the meeting of I and Thou—
it is for this that we were made.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 22. We are born of time

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                22.

We are born of time;
surely it is time
that makes the river of life.
This river of unstable water,
drop upon lively drop,
carries our substance
from one and another adventure,
then on to each newer start.

We are woven of time;
surely it is time
that writes the book of life.
Life is written in
the language of experience;
death translates our essence,
by a more complex language,
into the stardust of creation.

We are the Music of Time;
surely it is Time
who writes us into songs
that dance with rejoicing waters,
drawn from saving springs!
The Book is full of our songs,
therefore, sing! Sing, for you are
the undying music of the Music-Maker.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 21. The truth of the rose

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                21.

The truth of the rose,
lies in no ghostly apparition,
but as that sweet music,
borne among clouds as a dream,
that passes through the waves of the sea
to be born into the garden of our seeking.

The truth of the rose
defies test tube and lab;
for in as much as the volatile ester
can be created beyond cloud and sea,
the truest circadian emission of rose
can only be realized in the garden of experience.

The truth of the rose
lies enfolded in the mystery of eternal, recurring Spring,
which willfully disturbs the world with vibrant color and
soulful perfume that cannot help but rise like delicate music
through our tender senses and memory,
in the gardens of earthly reality and of Paradise.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 20. No one could ever believe

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                20.

No one could ever believe

The report that said “leave.”

Houses, muddied and upended
,
Mark the place where lives ended.

Once cozy and comfortable rooms

Have been crushed into tombs;
All hope of rescue and repair,

         Has been replaced by despair.

Years of flood, following drought,
Stirred the soft hills about,

Until dead water over soggy land

Gave way. Nothing could stand
up to this path of liquid soil,
And so we stoop now to grim toil;

Those who here claimed rights by birth.

         Now lie in the arms of earth.

O God, we return those to you
Whose losses we mourn anew
After each passing report.

You did not lose what you gave;
Returning, we lose not, though we crave
assurance of a comforting sort.

Life is one horizon, as also is death—
Only You understand the fullness of breath
—Relieve us from sorrow, grant us resort.

Thanks to You, ever renewed and unending,
Unquenchable Life love serves by the tending
Of each generation, in every place and port.

Amen.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 19. Time and again, before and after

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                19.

Time and again, before and after,
Time and again, betwixt and between,
Time is eternal witness of timeless now,
a sweet, through-composed music
interwoven through the give and take
of every atom that constitutes here and home.

The part that is singular awareness
may be a guess, but it is a gift,
and nothing mere.

Sadly,
too many moments pass unattended,
too much of the mystery is missed
for the unnatural thrill,
the unfit distraction.

Many who claim to seek the
impossible union
miss the point
entirely.

Naming,
seeing,
practice,
reflection
and action
are, each and all,
the manifest,
vibrant and musical
intersection
of all that is.

Here is the sweet music
that stirs the rose petals
and each blade of grass,
while lulling tired eyes
and sweet dream bliss—
Here and always,
here and now,
and how!

Here and now is,
and is incarnate in everything,
Time and again, betwixt and between,
Time and again, before and after,
timeless here will always be now and home.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen