' The Still Point '...

At the still point of the turning world.

Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.

And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.

Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.

Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.




- T. S. Eliot

From "Burnt Norton”
T. S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962
London: Faber and Faber, 1963