White Moments

The best of life, what is it but white moments?

Those swift illuminations when we see

The flying shadows on the fragrant meadows

As God beholds them from eternity.

White moments, when the bliss of being worships,

And fear and shame are heretics that burn

In holy fire of exquisite desire

For love's surrender and for love's return.

White moments, when a Power above the artist

Catches his plodding chisel, sets it free,

And from each urgent stroke there springs emergent

The wayward grace that laughs at industry.

White moments, when the drowsing soul, sense-muffled,

Is stung awake by some keen arrow-flight

And rends the bestial, claiming its celestial

Succession in the lineage of light.

White moments, when the spirit, long confronted

By all the bitter formulae of fate,

Inveterate romancer, finds its answer

In some mysterious faith inviolate.

White moments, when the silence steals on sorrow,

And in that hush the heart becomes aware

Of wings that brood it, visions that seclude it

Forevermore from folly, fear and care.

The best of life, what is it but white moments?

Freedoms that break the chain and fling the load,

Irradiations, ardors, consecrations,

— The starry shrines along our pilgrim road.

~ Katharine Lee Bates

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Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.