22.jpgWhat we know to be not possible,
  Though time after time foretold
By wild hermits, by shaman and sybil
  Gibbering in their trances,
Or revealed to a child in some chance rhyme
  Like will and kill, comes to pass
Before we realize it:  we are surprised
  At the ease and speed of our deed
And uneasy:  It is barely three,
  Mid-afternoon, yet the blood
Of our sacrifice is already
  Dry on the grass; we are not prepared
For silence so sudden and so soon;
The day is too hot, too bright, too still,
Too ever, the dead remains too nothing.
  What shall we do till nightfall? 

From Nones by W.H. Auden