'A piece of music is not a mere sequence of notes, but a tightly organized organic whole.

..one step, one stroke at a time, yet each step or stroke is an integral part of the whole, the kinetic melody of running or swimming. Indeed, if we think of each note or step too consciously, we may lose the thread...

Thought itself was almost impossible within this tiny window of time.'

One step at time... The moment passes through the clouds and is changed...

Leaves, formed by sun, the high light, the soft breeze, moon, shadows, rain, stars, reflections and refractions, its own ancient code. There is time in the leaves but only we know the seasons. Is it November now, the time of burning leaves bundled into small piles by the roadside and of acrid smoke rising from the sodden ground? Is it the time of forgiveness, a time to see who we finally are? 

One step at a time, over the abyss, on this beautiful transient bridge, floating high above the world..uncertainty holds us still in the times of departures, and we carry with us this faint recollection of time when it wasn't time at all.

How brief our lives. I see an old photograph in black and silver unchanged! The unrepeatable present, though we say to ourselves: "Haven't I seen you some place before?" 

You ask me why I smile
But I do not answer,
for my thoughts are carried downstream.
Far away from the world.
(from memory)
--Li Po.

(much is borrowed from W.S. Merwin. The full story of Clive can be read online here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/24/the-abyss

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