Wasn’t that the time when we knew that it was all around us?
We knew, didn’t we, that the heavens and the winds and
The seasons and the sea held for us The Tone.
The Tone for our careers.
Pitched high in the diamond, deep upon deep from the mountain,
Ineffable from the amber planets;
We were held in it, and it held in us, and for us,
It was all.

It sounded its laws in all that we saw.
Life and Love in all.
In that time we knew.

Now we scramble, stammering in our existence.
Now we listen, the wandering pulse.
No Tone.
Nothing fine, nothing revered,
Nothing unconsciously sublime.
The Bottom Line.
The ubiquitous, omnipresent, Bottom Line.
Not a shred of Beauty ever reaches The Bottom Line.

Back away. Back away and look.
Inch by celestial inch.
Be Orion; look as he looks.
Be close to Sirius.
Thrive among the Seven Sisters
And gaze upon our planet, on its own terms.
And look into your own globe-holding hands.
In one hand, a continent of famine, of desolation, and piety.
In the other hand, a continent of abundance, of efficiency,
and abandon.

Listen – The Tone is still, awaiting your move.
Look – The Tone watches for humanity’s impetus.
Let The Tone’s magnetic pull raise your hands.
Raise them, and raise them, and fold them together.
Wasn’t that the time?
That time has never ended.