Eternity
 

I saw Eternity the other night.

It was like one of those photos
of Tube Stations in the last war.

Huddled together, mindful
of the booming overhead.

They are all gone into a world of flickering contingency,
lighting up as we think of them, or dream,
which is thinking without the handrails.

They can’t complain.

There may been communal singing.
Someone had a ukulele.

Hi, David—

As an American, I know the Blitz only from a sidebar in my high school history textbook, but I was captivated by your poem. I didn’t see where it was going until the last two lines. Eternity is terrifying, and we poets make music—sometimes even silly songs—to distract ourselves from contemplating it and to drown out the sounds of destruction. Very well done.

Glenn

Hi David,

This is nicely and evocatively said. I am curious about the lack of a title. Nick suggested one of my recent pieces have no title. It's kind of hard for me to know what I would think of this being untitled if the thread heading of "Eternity" were not there. Maybe some other readers will have an illuminating opinion.

Jim

.
I like the sparseness of this. There's a lot of room for the imagination to run... Mine runs directly to events of today. Our handrails are missing.

Is there a "have" missing in the penultimate line?

-

That’s an arresting first line David. Especially as the N isn’t rushing up to us having had an epiphany, or having found the meaning of life. No, he saw Eternity a few nights ago and just thought he’d mention it.

Eternity seems oddly familiar, slightly distant like old b&w photos. We see people who cared about each other, lived their lives and are now long gone. I like the way they fleetingly light up when thought about. And dreams as thinking without handrails is lovely.

“They can’t complain” is a little spooky. A phrase that usually means life is ok, so-so, but here also means being unable to complain or get out of their predicament.

The communal singing and the possible ukele bring us back to the everyday stuff our lives are built of, some of it sticking, but often forgotten.

It has a gentle non-plussedness about it.

Joe

I think David is counting on the reader to know the first line is borrowed from Henry Vaughan.

DOH! I didn't recognize it (although I've known the second line of Vaughan's poem from kidhood, from Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time series). I thought David might be referring to one of several films called Eternity....

Thanks, Roger!

I'm still a bit thrown as to exactly who or what is the antecedent of "They," grammatically speaking. Is it "photos"? "Tube Stations"? The sentence itself seems to be referring to people, but no people seem to be in the poem before "They"....

Henry who? (I'll get me coat)

Roger(bob), you're right, of course. And L6 is largely his as well (as I'm sure you also noticed). He's my Virgil, in a way, I now realise. Ha! Pretentiously.

Julie, I'm hoping the provenance of L6 will make it clear that "they" are ... whoever I'm talking about, i.e. not the photos or the Tube stations. (I don't want to be too prescriptive about who they are, so as to give the poem its largest possible life, but I know who I think they are.)

No need for your coat, Joe! (And would "They mustn't grumble" be better? I think so.)

Glenn, Jim (R), Jim (M) - thanks for your thoughts (and for liking it).

There is, Jim. Well spotted, and thanks.

Thanks to all, in fact!

Cheers

David

Hey David,

This is a charming poem. There's something wistful and endearing about it. I'll add some specific comments below.

Enjoy this.

Trev



I saw Eternity the other night. [Nice first line. I'd suggest removing the capital E]

It was like one of those photos
of Tube Stations in the last war[,]
[Remove stanza break?]
[h]uddled together, [all] mindful
of the [fearsome] booming overhead.

They are all gone into a world of flickering contingency, [nice line]
lighting up as we think of them, or dream,
which[, really,] is thinking without the handrails [of logic].

They can’t complain. [I'm not sure why you think this. Why can't they complain?]

There may [have] been communal singing.
Someone [may even have] had a ukulele.

[While I do like a last line, I feel like something else could follow it. Any more ideas?]