The forerunner
You are
your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation
of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation.
And I too am my own forerunner, for the long
shadow stretching before me at sunrise shall gather under my feet at the
noon hour. Yet another sunrise shall lay another shadow before me, and
that also shall be gathered at another noon.
Always have we been our own forerunners, and
always shall we be. And all that we have gathered and shall gather shall
be but seeds for fields yet unploughed. We are the fields and the ploughmen,
the gatherers and the gathered.
When you were a wandering desire in the mist,
I too was therem a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out
of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and
dreams were space without measure.
And when you were a silent word upon life's quivering
lips, I too was there, another silent word. Then life uttered us and we
came down the years throbbing with memories of yesterday and with longing
for tomorrow, for yesterday was death conquered and tomorrow was birth
pursued.
And now we are in God's hands. You are a sun
in His right hand and I an earth in His left hand. Yet you are not more,
shining, than I, shone upon.
And we, sun and earth, are but the beginning
of a greater sun and a greater earth. And always shall we be the beginning.
You are your own forerunner, you the stranger
passing by the gate of my garden.
And I too am my own forerunner, though I sit
in the shadows of my trees and seem motionless.
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