What is Now

What is now, is not this
Only, but is all time,
All places – with those
Ahead and those behind
In one – and so now too
Are you and I, as we were,
As we shall be, as we
Are always, together and
Apart, known and
Unknown to each other.

For what was is ever still,
Unchanging and unchangeable
In itself, yet in ourselves
Making and unmaking us
Together with all past
And to come, setting us
Within what is and
Is yet, in an instant
Of forgetting and renewal,
Becoming and departure.

There is no made thing here,
Which I can touch or see,
That shares in the life
Which animates you and
Me, but it comes and goes
As all stilled things do,
But there is neither
Stillness for us nor
Movement, which is
A state that cannot be.

We know too that what
We have said and done
Accompanies all we may
Say or do, and it endures too
In the words and acts
Of others before and
After us, all we being
Joined in word and act,
As in the single, total
Hold of our togetherness.

No, there is no coming
Nor going for us, but
There is being, which is
Neither yours nor mine,
Nor in time nor out of it,
And we inhabit neither
The moment nor eternity,
But exist beyond both,
In each other, in all life,
In the dead and still to be.

Then what existence here
Is ours? What habitation
Have we, and in what
Difference you and me or
Anyone else? Or is there none –
None of these – but always
Pretense of presence?
Then no matter is, nor
Time, and you and I
Are enfolded in inexistence.

We hold each other, and
So grip ourselves, but in
The losing of us both, for
It is death in life that we
Embrace, and all the while
This object here shows
Its perfect face and
Moves its hands,
Having something new
And important to tell.

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