113 - A Gap in the World

A Gap in the World
By Harold McCundy

You know how it is. You come on a view sometimes
That makes a gap in the world and sets you dreaming:
Perhaps a curving road overhung with branches,
Rockwalled, rosebordered, patched with sun and shadow,
Opening out to where it bends away in a haze of glory,
Beckoning.

You dream that beyond, in a calm clearing,
Standing at an old weatherbeaten gate, waiting,
Unexpected but expecting you, are the immortal
Unseen companions you have been looking for
All your mortal days.

Your mind leaps forward
Past weariness and defeat into the infinitely possible,
This world, your world, becomes but one of a multitude,
Beautiful, but still a particle, a trifle,
Among the uncountable suns and planets of your home galaxy,
Beyond which, entirely invisible to you, dwell beings
Who are to themselves, as you to yourself, a burden of gross matter
In comparison with others further along that endless road,
Which, rockwalled, rosebordered, patched with sun and shadow,
Opens out to where it bends away in a haze of glory,
Beckoning....

A frequent contributor to THEOLOGY TODAY, Harold McCurdy is Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has published six volumes of poetry.