the comet museum

.

.

So the feeling comes afterward

some of it may reach us only

long afterward when the moment 

itself is beyond reckoning

.

beyond time beyond memory 

as though it were not moving in 

heaven neither burning farther

through any past nor ever to 

arrive again in time to be 

when it has gone the senses wake

.

all through the day they wait for it

here are pictures that someone took

of what escaped us at the time

only now can we remember

.

~ W.S. Merwin

from The Pupil

.