A People Without History Is Not Redeemed From Time

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.
                                                        -T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

*Go tell it on the mountain (or at the shopping mall, or at the gas pump): Stay wide-eyed for Wiseblood Books' forthcoming Paradise in The Waste Land, a collection of T.S. Eliot's early works which features an ingenious introduction by Jeremiah Webster.

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