Elsewhere

When dawn was breaking I lay in the embrace
Of sheets and pillows. The whole world was a place
Of warmth and softness and the dregs of dreams.
That was today. How far away it seems!

When morning came I stood in the chilly street
And dreamed of softness and enveloping heat
And watched for a bus. The sky was all-aglow.
That was today. It seems so long ago.

When day was fully-grown, I knelt in prayer
As the priest’s familiar words brazened the air
At the lunch-time Mass. Only the house of God
Seemed real then. Already it seems odd.

Wherever I go, this thought hangs over me;
Nothing exists except what I hear and see
This very moment. Beyond yonder wall
Is nothing to be seen; nothing at all;

As though all this were only scenery
Changed by invisible hands, too quick to see,
As act follows act. Oh, what mind can embrace
The weird plurality of time and space?