The movement of time
Is shaken in these seas, and what one does
One moment has no might upon the moment
That follows after.
—Yeats, The Shadowy Waters
What, though we may suppose it might,
Could bind together the halves, once severed,
Of this fruit upon the world’s great serving dish
If each moment it’s remade anew,
With just a shadow
Of the old to play upon the mind
And thus perfect the portrait’s wish?
If you remember differently to me,
Maybe things were different where you are,
And neither's neither right nor wrong.
"The yew-bough has been broken into two,
And all the birds are scattered — O! O! O!
Farewell!"*
No more to say—or that can be said—
In this eternity once more of science, and falsifiability. We may perhaps hope to scent its pattern when we're dead!
*William Butler Yeats, The Shadowy Waters (1900).