How Should I Presume?

I know this poem very well, have known it very well for a long time. Every bit of it is part of the foundation of my heart, even at the hour of doom or any other hour; even at the hour for tea, for coffee, or for nothing at all.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

I cannot presume, and I never have. I am always alone in this, as is each who does this task, though mostly not lonely. Adults become old and stale, or tough, or any one of a thousand states of agedness. And yet we too were young, like Phlebas or like you. We no longer live in the same realms; what is life and death and joy or terrible pain to you is not the same for me. But we are human too, and sometimes we have met at the tangential touching of our worlds, mostly to the good, though sometimes to the bad.

And in the dying days of the year, I remember the fallen and the risen, the quick and the dead, the brave and the timorous. I write testimonials; I keep a copy of every one of them just for the distant and unlikely eventuality that someday somebody might want another copy. Though nobody sees it, the seasoned mercenaries of the shadow world are not mercenary enough to take money for lives. We are daft that way.

We do not have to write songs that nobody hears or watch for dangers that nobody sees. It is enough that the songs are sung and the dangers are baulked. It is enough that we make ourselves small and disposable so that we can be forgotten without loss. It is always enough because it has to be; if there were rewards, it might tempt us too much. And yet, we do gain, we do receive, we are rewarded. And it is very sweet although we must learn never to think in anticipation of it.

The year dies. With it, some hopes fade, some faces elope. It will never be the same again, but then it never has been. We learn to live on through the loss. And one more state of age passes. We must forgive each other for what was well-intended but not well-accomplished, for what was well-accomplished but not well-executed, for what was well-executed but not well-intended. We are all faithless to some extent. But God remains true, and to Him we must turn. Alone.