Hymn to Time
Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.
And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.
Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.
Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.
Notes
Moving on from Elinor Wylie’s down-country dream of soft, unearned peaches falling into the grass, Ursula K. Le Guin turns our appetite toward the invisible, unyielding structure that seasons every harvest—time itself. Her verse stages a strage dialectic of existence, where every moment of human abundance contains its own negation; a fleeting synthesis where life and decay continuously feed into one another. By treating the relentless march of hours not as an enemy but as the very rhythm that gives sweetness to the harvest, the poem grounds August's theme of Feast in the bittersweet truth that to truly taste the present, we must honor the time consuming us. #poetry #august #ursulakleguin #time #existence
From Late in the Day: Poems 2010-2014 (PM Press, 2015). Copyright © 2015 by Ursula K. Le Guin.