Time melts.

January 5, 2015

New Year's Resolution: Patience 

Walter de la Mare’s not-so-simple little poem, “Away,” is on the healing power of time, how much it lets us forget. 

               Away  

          There is no sorrow 

           Time heals never;                              
           No loss, betrayal, 
           Beyond repair. 
5         Balm for the soul, then,
           Though grave shall sever
           Lover from loved
           And all they share;
           See the sweet sun shines, 

10        The shower is over,
           Flowers preen their beauty,
           The day how fair!
           Brood not too closely
           On love, or duty; 
15        Friends long forgotten
           May wait you where
           Life with death
           Brings all to an issue;
           None will long mourn for you,                                               
20        Pray for you, miss you,
           Your place left vacant,
           You not there.

Time, like an ever-melting cheese, bears all its sons away.

“Brood not too closely / on love, or duty . . .”

     Turn the poem over, and it is on the persistence of memory: it does not persist; it is too distractible. A memory does not continue; it returns. That means it has gone away, and we’re not sure where - into the next room? the next town? the next state? the other side of the world? It may come back when we invite it, but it may just as well send regrets - it’s indisposed or unavoidably detained; there’s too far to come; or, it doesn’t want to just now. Yet, it may drop by unannounced, as if it were always welcome. When it comes, we may recognize it immediately; or we may be completely confounded, it is so altered - or we are.

     Dali’s famous painting The Persistence of Memory with its image of the melting pocket watches, suggests that time itself is soft, not solid and certain so that it cannot change shape. It hardens and melts – like Dali’s inspiration, or so he said, a Camembert cheese turning to paste in the sun.

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