The Ephemeral Shades of Time: A Reflection in Poetry

“Sean Stone’s The Ephemeral Shades of Time is an evocatively moving book of poetry. More than once, his musings had me head down to my desk in contemplation, with inspired smiles. Smiles for the fearlessness of his courage to pursue the very nature and essence of ‘Soul.’

From grief amid the tombstones of Sarajevo to the camps of Somalia, the visceral and metaphysical force of his imagery leaves one mindful of the pain and anguish often lost in the shadows of memory. You’re asked to ‘elope from the clutches of despair’ and to celebrate what transcends human nature. His poems reward us with hope, and with the profound realization, ‘could love by way of the heart be our link to the soul?’”

—James Ragan, poet and author of The Hunger Wall and Too Long a Solitude

Sean Ali Stone has been a published poet since he was 11 years old. In his most recent book, Desiderata by Ali, he tells a cosmic love story in the form of an adult fairy tale. Now, with his first poetry book, The Ephemeral Shades of Time, Sean draws upon his personal experiences, which have shaped his world view… of the schism between the heart and the head, as wide as the gulf between nations, peoples, and realities.

This poetry originated in his teenage angst, set against the fin de siècle phobias of a coming apocalypse. Sean paints the dawn of the 21^st Century as a world driven by the death-instinct, where humans feel increasingly alienated and obstructed from deep connection in love. From that death instinct, the self-destructive spirit of terror, war, and despair weighed heavily on the zeitgeist.

But in the spirit of death, with its great mystery, a necessary transformation occurs, like the sun chasing away the night. At the root of Sean’s poetry, as it is with the human spirit, there is a resilient desire to be seen. Heard. Understood. And loved. These are the themes that recur, even as time slips through our grasp, as we age and journey, and yet… are drawn inexorably closer to our soul’s truth.

We are alone, unique, individual beings, but somehow sharing in a collective experience. In poetry, our essential self-expression, we are reminded how profoundly we can relate to one another at the level of feelings. Then, we are left with memories of what we once were, and once saw, and once believed. At last, as Ali writes, “I remember it all, but I prefer to forgive.”