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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