Temporal and Timeless

Peter Elbow's essay "The Music of Form" felt very familiar to me as a poet. Theorists from T.S. Eliot to Harold Bloom have echoed what Archibald MacLeish wrote in his famous "Ars Poetica": "A poem should be motionless in time." Here is the poem:

Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to the thumb, Silent as the sleeve-worn stone Of casement ledges where the moss has grown— A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds. * A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs, Leaving, as the moon releases Twig by twig the night-entangled trees, Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves, Memory by memory the mind— A poem should be motionless in time As the moon climbs. * A poem should be equal to: Not true. For all the history of grief An empty doorway and a maple leaf. For love The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea— A poem should not mean But be.

The goal of the perfect poem is to be at once temporal (pertaining specifically to the current state in which it was written) and timeless (universal, could be understood and emotionally resonant at any given time). Hence, Elbow's idea of binding time--in all the various forms that he describes--is nothing new. The poet always has been preoccupied with creating both a present that is informed by the past and a past that is informed by the present--all in one poem! It's difficult work. I definitely related, then, to the question: "Is it possible to have the advantages of both--a well-ordered record of past thinking that nevertheless preserves and even enacts the life, presence, and energy of thinking in process?" And furthermore, I ask: how on Earth do we teach this to students?

Now I am stressed out by these enormous questions. It is nice to know, though, that writers of every genre struggle with these answers. To lessen the emotional load, here is an adorable picture of my kitten, who is also questioning how to be at once temporal and timeless.