In my end is my beginning

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing..."
T. S. Eliot from Four Quartets

It seems like the older I get, the more traditions seem to be getting lost by the wayside. Women don’t wear gloves anymore, and men have long since given up the custom of wearing overcoats. What happened to the dapper gentleman and a woman of fine means?

Children don’t go out to play nowadays so the lilting sound of a mother’s voice calling her child’s name from the front porch has silenced.

I miss the sights and sounds of long ago. Customs, traditions if you please, are all but endangered now.

A handwritten letter? All but extinct. Cut flowers from the garden? Withered on the vine. And, when was the last time you took a gift when invited to dine at someone’s house?

Sunday used to be a day for a leisurely afternoon dinner or for a ride in the car to the park for a picnic. What happened to the smell of hot bread baking in the oven; a stroll through the neighborhood for a chat with old friends? Where is the romance; secret whispers and stolen kisses; magical glances in moonlight and fairy glow? Where is the train that pulls away slowly while someone waves it adieu from the platform?

What happened to the melodic feel and rush of unexpected happiness as youth saunters in and sits down to marvel?

 
 

What happened to us? Where have we gone?

Backward. I say.

Turn backward the clock.

Kind sir, please.

 
 
   

 Winter At Motanic ~

Oregon’s Blue Mountains

Steve Eshom