"This essential potential which still can be"

Now and Then

for Bart Wolffe

Have I finally suffered enough to see
Now as really always (both effect and cause)?
Nothing in my pocket nothing in my hand
No smoke no mirrors and nothing up my sleeve
This is it and this is what is left to me
That understanding is not to understand

The letting go of what really never was
Is like leaving to come or coming to leave
This essential potential which still can be
Though ragged by the roadside still can be found
Gathered from the ashes and sacrificed at
Bonfires of my vanities I dance around
My burnt offerings the smoke by which I see
The crossing is the focus of clarity

As I have no future so I have no past
As death becomes nearer life becomes dearer
I just want to slow it down and make it last
As each night fades away each day comes clearer
And what I touch has never been touched before
This moment which is the crossing: I see that
Now is always true no matter who thinks when
This being the ultimate I have no more

Now is always the beginning of the game
Once dealt the cards have to be dealt with this way
Whether fifteen or fifty it is the same
Crossing: the point at which all intersects now
Balancing on the brink between night and day
Before after always and never somehow

There is only now as there is never then

+Steven Curtis Lance



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