Thursday, December 10, 2009

In My Beginning is My End

Feral House #13, James Griffioen

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

~ T.S. Eliot
EAST COKER
No. 2 of 'Four Quartets' part V.

2 comments:

tom-irizarry said...

something comforting about houses,though covered in green, but these images and Elliot, are a bit disturbing albeit, a testimony to the ancient spiral of creation.

Tamsen Ellen said...

one word...entropy