Things Worth, Or Not, Remembering:
T.S. Eliot, O.L. Poetry and the Passage of Time
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“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.”
T.S. Eliot
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Only in a world of speculation, but what if,
There was no such world, one speculates,
Where safely looking in both directions as
We cross the alleys and boulevards of now is
NOT required; living in series of moments,
a steady spasming of venturing, and always,
something gained, something lost, but never,
additive, cumulative and more sensational
than experiential and we have no memory,
and thus no prejudice for or against!
Living with constant aspiration, not reckoning what are
Things Worth Remembering, is that not more than
no footfalls, only footsteps, to new love, renewed love,
possibilities of all doors opened, and we take each day
as it is given, banishing longing, jailing regret,
believing round every turn is a new fragrant, radiant rose garden,
or not…but perhaps means eternal, forever looking.
O. L. Poetry
5/28/23
