Fumbling Toward Grace

Atticus bought me a poem book for our anniversary a few weeks ago. While flipping through it last evening, I found the most beautiful poem. It took me back to that cold, Chicago February day when Atticus and I met. There was a moment while sitting over coffee and greek omlettes, when something just clicked and I knew, “This one is different.” Time fell away and that connection was the truest thing in the room.  I love that feeling. I love remembering it. Also, the last stanza in particular makes me remember the day Maggie was born. “Time was away and she was here, life no longer what it was…” So much beauty.

Our engagement dinner

Meeting Point

Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs,
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving steps):
Time was away and somewhere else.

And they were neither up nor down;
The stream’s music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.

The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise -
Between the clang and clang a flower
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.

The camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.

Time was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.

Her fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.

God or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart can understand
Can verify in the body’s peace
God or whatever means the Good.

Time was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.

- Louis Macneice

Time was away and she was here…