The Quiet-Voiced Elders
Saturday, December 2, 2023
As we grow older
nothing should remain
unsaid between us.
The quiet-voiced elders,
With words and meanings
in a worn-out poetical fashion
[speak in the] wisdom of humility.
Old men ought to be explorers.
We shall not cease
building great empires
and pulling [on] the strings
Of [infinite] spheres of existence,
and what there is to conquer
to recover what has been lost,
lurking in the shadows
of what men choose to forget.
We walk with the dead
of many generations—not forgetting
all in the waiting,
watching and waiting.
Feet rising and falling.
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy boots.
They depart, and we go with them
tiptoeing on eggshells.
There the dance is,
and there is only the dance.
A crown upon your lifetime's effort
of all that you have done, and been
costing not less than everything.
collected lines from various places. A number of snippets taken from FOUR QUARTETS by T.S. Eliot
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