Sinai Off Cape Ann
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation. Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement—
And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;
We, content at the last
If our temporal reversion nourish
(Not too far from the yew-tree)
The life of significant soil.
THE DRY SALVAGES (No. 3 of ‘Four Quartets’)
T.S. Eliot
(The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts)
* I edited out one line because I don’t know how to pronounce chthonic. 🙂
I thought of this poem yesterday as I sang Parshat Yitro, especially when I switched to the “Ta’am Elyon,” The Higher Musical Notes for singing the Ten Statements:
“music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts…”
******
I thought of this poem yesterday as I chanted the Rashi on the Ten Statements, opening doors to secrets and hidden meanings:
“These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses;”
******
I thought of this poem yesterday as I imagined the Days of Preparation for Revelation:
“the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.”
******
I allowed my mind to soar and picture how they “saw” the sounds, how their souls ecstatically leapt from their bodies toward heaven and thought:
“Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement.”
******
I shuddered as the people crashed against the rocks and yet fought to try, try again after pleading with God to not communicate with us directly but only through Moshe:
“And right action is freedom
From past and future also.
For most of us, this is the aim
Never here to be realised;
Who are only undefeated
Because we have gone on trying;”