Between which we walk

Let us go then you and I *

Down these many corridors of stone,

Open to the winter stillness,

A thaw in motion, somnambulant in mood.

I have seen all things pass and all men go

In the hall of the Royal Dûnn at Tara

Under the shadow of the drifting leaf.Listen!

The rocks and trees are whispering.

And slowly, very slowly,

Like a world caught in breath, we wait to exhale.

Caught between the present and future,

At the height of expectation

Exhilaration is the moment

Of sweet release.

I have heard you calling, Dalua, Dalua!

Arise from your dreams on Mount Amara **

And walk with me, tripping down the nights and days,

Mind and muse, moving together, 

A marriage of true minds, intoxicating one another, 

Drinking from that conjugal cup,

A silent communion, a willing communication.

And in the eternal landscape of the here and now,

In the post-glacial history, lies an archive in the granite rock.

Layer upon layer of stored fable and fact,

Between which we walk, between the stones,

Amidst the lithological annals, over the pebbles,

Over the grit, touching the quivering branches,

The vibrant mosses, the glistening webs.

Navigate through this inner landscape, 

Polyhymnia you are my guide. 

Tread carefully across the boulders,

Across the numinous ride of the track,

Across the Earth's sweet cleavages.

And we, each of us upon the last and sharpest height, ***

Feel the air is thin and oblivion not far away. 

VH 2009

* TS Eliot

** Milton

*** Tennyson