There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
~ T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Hmmm, is it still possible, within the raging river that our world has become, to find a quiet oxbow where there is time for you and time for me?
I’m giving some consideration, albeit reluctantly, to investing in a Blackberry or one of its competitors. I’ve stubbornly held out against doing so for a number of years. It has always seemed to me that the day I cross that threshold I will be chaining myself to technology and surrendering the last vestiges of simplicity in my life.
Unfortunately, it’s tough to stay unplugged in this mile-a-minute world we live in. Time seems contracted as if we’re all moving at warp speed. My brain is having difficulty keeping up. Seems I stop to take a breath and suddenly I’m missing a meeting I’m supposed to be at.
In truth, my life is uncomplicated compared to many people around me. And yet I find myself sprinting through much of the week trying to get ahead of the race. I want to believe I bank some time and then cash it in for a day off the clock. A leisurely, self- indulgent day to ponder…
Halloween Pennant Female
How such a striking and wondrously delicate thing as a Halloween Pennant can still exist in a world gone mad.
How such a fragile body can have mastery over those resplendent, amber wings with their intricately etched veins and elaborate symmetry.
How the tender green shoot can bend so lovingly to support the creature that clings to it.
How such exquisite things can continue to exist in a world that daily encroaches more and more upon the gentle meadow which they call home for a few short weeks.
This resilient little dragonfly, which could shelter comfortably in the hollow of my hand, teaches me that it is still possible to step away from the raging river now and then. It is my enduring metaphor for the hope that there is still time for “a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea”.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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Tags: Halloween Penant · Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · T.S. EliotNo Comments