PARADISE AND PURGATORY

by: Zona Gale (1874-1938)

      O you ever go into your room and find familiar things unfamiliar?
      Muslin curtains thinned by moonlight,
      Open window, candle, mirror, expectant chairs,
      Long smooth waiting bed--do they not bear another aspect
      As if you had divined them doing their duty,
      As if to be inanimate clearly involved a process,
      As if they were surprised at their creeping task of going back to earth, rising in plants, quickening into beings?
      That is the great work of those patient things.
      That is why they look so intent.
      So with all your preoccupation in dressing for to-day
      Your object is the same as that of these humble ones
      Only you have reached a paradise where you can hasten your way.
      But these others are yet in purgatory.

"Paradise and Purgatory" is reprinted from The Secret Way. Zona Gale. New York: Macmillan Co., 1921.

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