For The Interim Time

A Poem by John O'Donohue...

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing 
Here seems TO believe the relief of dark.

You are in the time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here seems washed out;
The way forwards still concealed from you.

“The old id not old enough to have died away;
The new still too young to have been born.”

You cannot lay claim to anything,
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred:
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your Heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening 
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your Heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

~ John O’Donohue