John Ashbery: Blue Sonata

Long ago was the then beginning to seem like now

As now is but the setting out on a new but still

Undefined way. That now, the one once

Seen from far away, is our destiny

No matter what else may happen to us. It is

The present past of which our features,

Our opinions are made. We are half it and we

Care nothing about the rest of it. We

Can see far enough ahead for the rest of us to be

Implicit in the surroundings that twilight is.

We know that this part of the day comes every day

And we feel that, as it has its rights, so

We have our right to be ourselves in the measure

That we are in it and not some other day, or in

Some other place. The time suits us

Just as it fancies itself, but just so far

As we not give up that inch, breath

Of becoming before becoming may be seen,

Or come to seem all that it seems to mean now.

The things that were coming to be talked about

Have come and gone and are still remembered

As being recent. There is a grain of curiosity

At the base of some new thing, that unrolls

Its question mark like a new wave on the shore.

In coming to give, to give up what we had,

We have, we understand, gained or been gained

By what was passing through, bright with the sheen

Of things recently forgotten and revived.

Each image fits into place, with the calm

Of not having too many, of having just enough.

We live in the sigh of our present.

If that was all there was to have

We could re-imagine the other half, deducing it

From the shape of what is seen, thus

Being inserted into its idea of how we

Ought to proceed. It would be tragic to fit

Into the space created by our not having arrived yet,

To utter the speech that belongs there,

For progress occurs through re-inventing

These words from a dim recollection of them,

In violating that space in such a way as

To leave it intact. Yet we do after all

Belong here, and have moved a considerable

Distance; our passing is a facade.

But our understanding of it is justified.