Meeting Point

Time was away and somewhere else, 

There were two glasses and two chairs 

And two people with the one pulse 

(Somebody stopped the moving stairs): 

Time was away and somewhere else. 

And they were neither up nor down; 

The stream’s music did not stop, 

Flowing through heather, limpid brown, 

Although they sat in a coffee shop 

And they were neither up nor down. 

The bell was silent in the air 

Holding its inverted poise - 

Between the clang and clang a flower, 

A brazen calyx of no noise: 

The bell was silent in the air. 

The camels crossed the miles of sand 

That stretched around the cups and plates; 

The desert was their own, they planned 

To portion out the stars and dates: 

The camels crossed the miles of sand. 

Time was away and somewhere else. 

The waiter did not come, the clock 

Forgot them and the radio waltz 

Came out like water from a rock: 

Time was away and somewhere else. 

Her fingers flicked away the ash 

That bloomed again in tropic trees: 

Not caring if the markets crash 

When they had forests such as these, 

Her fingers flicked away the ash. 

God or whatever means the Good 

Be praised that time can stop like this, 

That what the heart has understood 

Can verify in the body’s peace 

God or whatever means the Good. 

Time was away and she was here 

And life no longer what it was, 

The bell was silent in the air 

And all the room a glow because 

Time was away and she was here.

Louis MacNeice

in, The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice