Only through time time is conquered

I have to admit that I often begin a post not knowing how or when it will end .... maybe, even if it will have an end. (A publishing agent and I once had a "debate" over whether or not every fictional story needed a 'beginning, middle and end' .... I guess she won the debate .... in a sense .... anyway ....). This is one of a few posts "left over" from last year. The photograph, as frequently is the case, is an incidental .... but, appropriate. (I think of it, laughingly, as "Still Life of Dust.") The music, as occasionally is the case, sort of dropped out of nowhere. If you are not familiar with T Bone Burnett, think of him as I do, one of Bobby Dylan's backup guitarists from long, long ago. This is one of two or three sort of related posts (at least in the sense they largely were written in 2016) which may or may not appear here. Do me a favor .... read a bit of T.S. Eliot and see if he enraptures you or sends you running for the nearest exit ....

Ain't life strange .... statement, not question

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.

So began T.S. Eliot in his poem, "Burnt Norton," the first of four in what became known as "The Four Quartets." The first was published in 1936, and the fourth in 1942. My favorite segment, if it even is appropriate to label one of the four as such, is "East Coker," which appeared in 1940.

I would love to discuss any and all of these poems with you, but not in this format or context or medium or this place or this time .... hmmmm .... time is the central issue here, is it not ?? Well, if you read the quartet, you might agree and might wish to discuss it at the appropriate time and in the appropriate place.

Back on point: In my beginning is my end. This, in effect, is what Elliot was thinking about in "East Coker," the second published of the four elements. Here is some of it:

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

 As a romantic by inclination and an English major by choice (history major, also, please remember .... sort of a dual sin, some have told me, while recommending that I return to college and study something useful), I tend to enjoy and to pronounce my enjoyment of poets such as Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Lord Tennyson .... and, well you get my drift.

But, while I adore their talent, way, far, deep within me I consider their work to be child's play, sometimes silly, without scratching the surface of what it truly is to gaze through and beyond the eyes to within the mind maze of humankind. No genius in them, you see. Simply pretty words and the ability to count meter. No melody, only emotional lyrics.

So, where does that leave me in terms of actual, idolatrous worship of a poet. Why, with T.S. Eliot, of course. Who else would it be, could it be, should it be?

Read the four poems of Eliot's Quartet and absorb those words if you are able. Bury yourself in them until there is nothing else surrounding you. Digest them -- literally, if necessary, to bring them inside of you .... hopefully, the ingredients of your stomach might reach the tendrils of your brain if all else fails. Whatever .... some say Johann Sebastian Bach is god .... I would seat T.S. Eliot at the same table.

Which brings us here: Eliot also wrote, "Only through time time is conquered" and "In my beginning is my end ...."

I understand his reference regarding time, but I am sort of sliding to the opposite end of the pendulum regarding beginnings and endings. I am thinking, "in my end is my beginning," at least in the context of humankind's concept of beginning and end, and beliefs might prove more powerful than mathematics.

As someone wrote, long before Eliot, "beginning and end are dreams" .... so, always at risk of "repeating myself," I might convince myself to take an antithetical approach to the abstraction and think of it as my end as my beginning -- and, it all is a dream anyway, right ?? Well, maybe .... but, that thought leads down another road toward another unknown ....

Which brings us here: "Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams."

Recognize those words ?? It would be nice if you did ....