This evening stops short of paradise
because it cannot hold time still.
The great fulfiller, the great betrayer.
The river we step in never twice
at the place we claim as “Here.”
The picture catches a fleeting moment.
A poem, a story recaptures what was
never caught. The beauty of the evening
light in the trees, on the ground,
the silence and stillness I take for granted,
is like a prayer to open the gates
of what cannot be seen but felt
in the beauty, the fullness of a moment.
And makes me think paradise
is nearly within sight. I listen
for a shadow whispering, “Follow
me.” I am ready to say, “Yes.”
I know I am Moses just
this side of the Promised Land.
-Byron Hoot
hootism (stolen from my friend, STC):
“Others, meanwhile,
Dote with a mad idolatry, and all
Who will not fall before their images,
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country.”
from Fears in Solitude, April, 1798, During the Alarm of an Invasion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
