If you could know that all the time the world would ever have is in the moment now in which you stand, that in your hand the future's bent and all the promise of the past's intent is held, would you not wait and listen and be still? Would you not let such mystery poured from unimagined source fill and fill and finally overflow the moment, until you, a living fragment of eternity, hear its measured beat and take its temp for your heart and hands and feet?
Her eyes filled with tears, but she said quietly, "I could die in peace, I think, if the world was beautiful. To know it's being ruined is hard."
Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to say them. I saw that I was not going to talk without crying, and so I cried.
She looked at me and held out her hand. She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world, and it covered me all over with light.