The Family Reunion

At my age, I only just begin to apprehend the truth
About things too late to mend: and that is to be old.
Nevertheless, I am glad if I can come to know them.

Success is relative:
It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

Strength demanded
That seems too much, is just strength enough given.

In a world of fugitives
The person taking the opposite direction
Will appear to run away.

I feel very tired, as only the old feel.
The young feel tired at the end of an action,--
The old, at the beginning.

There are hours when there seems to be no past or
future,
Only a present moment of pointed light
When you want to burn. When you stretch out your
hand
To the flames. They only come once,
Thank God, that kind

The moment of sudden loathing
And the season of stifled sorrow
The whisper, the transparent deception
The keeping up of appearances
The making the best of a bad job
All twined and tangled together, all are recorded.

In an old house there is always listening, and more is heard than is spoken.
And what is spoken remains in the room, waiting for the future to hear it.
And whatever happens began in the past, and presses hard on the future.

Whatever you have learned, Harry, you must remember
That there is always more: we cannot rest in being
The impatient spectators of malice or stupidity.
We must try to penetrate the other private worlds
Of make-believe and fear. To rest in our own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more

And the past is about to happen, and the future was
long since settled.

And the wings of the future darken the past, the beak
and claws have desecrated

History.