These words come from Leon Wieseltier in his remarkable book Kaddish. And they were proven for me last week in an odd way on a visit to painter Shane Cotton's studio in Palmerston North.

Early that day, a post of mine appeared on this blog noting the resemblance between the rising white diagonal line in this painting by W.A. Sutton...

... and the mysterious black skyborne form in McCahon's Tomorrow will be the same but not as this is ...

Walking into Shane's studio later the same morning, I saw, tucked away inside a very big new painting, this...

A long time in the air indeed. McCahon's line is still in flight.