If we are to live in the present moment, a worthy goal for most of us, it is helpful to always remain mindful of the impermanence of things. As Samuel Johnson famously said, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
Here are two fine poems that deal with life's impermanence and what it means for those who want to avoid sleepwalking through life. Enjoy!
The question before me, now that I
am old, is not how to be dead,
which I know from enough practice,
but how to be alive, as these worn
hills still tell, and some paintings
of Paul Cezanne, and this mere
singing wren, who thinks he's alive
forever, this instant, and may be.
Wendell Berry
Sabbath Poems 2001, VIII
Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.
Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with your world. Use it for once.
To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.
Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.
Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.
Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with your world. Use it for once.
To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.
Rilke
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, VIII
(translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
To always "climb back singing," to continue ringing the glass even as it shatters. Is there any better resolution we can make for the new year?
