Needing No Time

Needing no time for mourning over

Vanished splendors, the future receives

Us into its inner reality where

The movietone of memory is a mimicry

Of gleaming cities and other discoveries ;

Where the past is a sunset of pale clouds

Consumed by history now buried in the ages.

We stand in a sunset and gawk at the sun,

Choking ourselves with our dusty cries.

We want the past to jump into our pockets,

We want to jingle it at our pleasure, knowing

That this is the way life clings to love,

This is the way faith comes to life -

A perfume spreading in the spreading day.

The flight of hours into the year tells

Us that the past is a heap of burned leaves,

And we cannot have it with empty hands

Clutching at the fugitive winds of earth,

Cannot want it in our march into the morning.

The past is past, and we cannot remake it.

If we cannot remake it, we do not need it.

If we do not need it, there is nothing to fear.

If there is nothing to fear, it is worth destroying,

The future is for hoping, and we want it.

If we want it, we can have it.

If we can have it, it is all.

If it is all, it is worth fighting for it.

This is the way we face the coming day.

This is the way we stand in the sunset

And gawk at the sun, needing no time

For mourning in our march into the morning.