I nodded, then remembered he could not see andremembered his gift and his grace and knelt by him andput my head in his hands and pressed between his knees,as he patted me, chuckling a little.
“I’ll come tomorrow, Alcaeus,” I promised.
“Good.”
“I know your lot is worse than mine... I must findcourage.”
Beauty, I thought, beauty, what can I say to help thisman?
“Yes, tomorrow; then I’ll tell you, Sappho... I’ll tellyou what I’ve learned, living in my black sea. How myship drags anchor. What I’ve heard. I’ve heard somestrange things. I can sense someone moving, almost beforehe moves, a shift of air, let’s say.
“Watch me play jacks with Libus, old soldiers at theirfun. I could cheat you...if you gave me half a chance.”
Again that chuckle.
The book lay open and his great arms lay across hislap, fingers up. My father had owned that book. With ageit had come unsewed and hung in tatters: the smell of agewas there: I rubbed my fingers over pages...
Quickly, he said:
“I like to feel those pages... I wanted to write a bookas full of life...give back the thunder of thestorm...look how the bugs have eaten the book...see thatripped page...well, where will you keep your Homer?”
And he smiled.
“Shall I read something?”
“Yes...now!”
Turning the pages so he could hear them I searched fora favorite passage.
I read as slowly and as distinctly as possible,allowing each word time.
?
Cercolas, mother, Aesop, Phaon...gone. When shall I go?
?
I have been unable to write for days. I have nothing tosay...there is only emptiness.
?
Yesterday a nightingale sang, a song of tatteredleaves, scraps of Nile, bits of Euphrates, papyrusagainst night, against impending doom, againstdepression. Tender notes whispered insanity. Other notesurged self-pity. Others shattered—with sheerest delicacy—any hope of contrition.
A feather drops...a pause. One could die during such apause.
All of us wait—life waits!
A bubbling deceives the spirit, a trill alienates theheart. Something summons the past, other songs on othernights, other songs of other people, the bone flute, ofcourse.
This was not a bird, not a beak, not a feather but sailand spar, rigged to go at dawn, course along many shores.
“Beauty, you’re frail. Your bones are able to carrynext to nothing and yet your song travels, spreading asif a pebble had dropped on water...”
?
I walked under olive trees along the coast, followinggrassy paths, the breeze with me until I met Gogu,carrying a piece of kelp and a shell. At first, he didnot seem to recognize me. How thin, how sick he is!Shadows of the olives shadowed him. When he spoke, Ihardly listened. Each of us is going the same way, Ithought, and so we parted and stillness put itsloneliness about me. The words he had said mixed mebecause I had not listened, mixed with my love-memories,adding incoherence.
Why was Gogu carrying kelp and a shell? Why was Iwalking where I had often walked?
In a hundred years, this path has changed little: thetrees have become more gnarled, the shadows darker, theair quieter.
The marble shrine at the end of the path crumbles yearby year and yet remains about the same: I can remember itwhen another brought me: Phaon remembered it: and now,memories are re-dedicated and burned, their ashes undermy sandals, under my fingers and heart.
?
The best of life is illusion, I do not doubt. The bestof Phaon may have been illusion.
Ah, the nettles of desire, the sleeplessness, thegnawing of regrets in my skull. These are emotions we cannot share but must suffer alone till dawn, the dipperproving we are children.
I believe that we, as human beings, prove nothing:there is really nothing to prove except kindness anddecency: all else is more illusion.
I take my harp but there are no words to accompany thenotes. I urge Atthis to sing: play, darling, help meforget...let me see your face as I love to see it. Moveyour head with that fragile alacrity. Stretch your barelegs under your dress.
As I open the shutters in the morning, I miss him...theocean has grown much, much wider.
My favorite olive tree says nothing to me.
?
Alcaeus wrote me:
“I know I can help you. Come over for the day. Courage,friend.”
The note repulsed me. What could he know of Phaon, ofman’s cleanliness and beauty!
I did not answer. Instead, I climbed the hills withAtthis and Anaktoria, to lay a wreath at an altar thathas been our shrine for a while.
The sea was rough and the wind was rough.
Tears overcame me at the altar and I made them leaveme: I hoped to die there: I wanted my bitterness to killme: Why couldn’t it happen? Why couldn’t there be thisfinality?
I pulled flowers from the wreath and wrote his name onthe ground. A thrush hopped close by. The wind, gustingfrom the bay, scattered blossoms and I found Atthisbeside me, kneeling to comfort me. We had shared so much,the three of us, days and weeks, grief and joy. She andAnaktoria got me to eat, under pines sheltered from thewind; she and Anaktoria fixed my hair.
Their sad faces made me long for happiness for theirsake, and I tried to see beyond myself. There must be atrick that I can use to deceive others.
The placid sea carries a few boats,
small clouds on the horizon,
a series of silver cat’s-paws;
and as though through a sheet
of green glass the faces of
Sappho, Atthis and Anaktoria:
a laurel wreath whirls above the Aegean:
herons fly, dolphins leap.
K
leis left her shepherd’s hut and came here and we havetalked far into the night:
“He liked a gold cup...he liked the mountains...heliked the cove...yes, he went farther out to sea thananyone...his sailors liked him...he...”
Kleis stayed several days and each day was a mirror ofhis personality. Her beauty brought out his quality,imaging it in various ways, her nature shaken from itscustomary silence to talk of him. I recognized the effortand appreciated the communication. I wanted to write hernotes but she could not read. I wanted to thank her insome special way but it was she who thanked me, beforeslipping away.
Afterward I counted other friends: Alcaeus, Libus,Helen, Exekias, Atthis, Anaktoria, Gyrinno, Heptha,Gogu... I also counted those who have died. Dreaming, Icounted our island, our town, our trees, mountains andsea. I added my home. However childish to enumerate likethis, I went to sleep easily.
?
Perhaps, as I grow older, I may find an idea, a seed.Perhaps it can grow in someone’s mind: compassion,courage, grace, love—it could become one of these.
I shall continue to put down my thoughts, the handprintof my days.
Could it be that the greatest thing in life isperseverance?
?
Somebody, I tell you,
Someone in future time
Will remember us.
We are oppressed by
oblivion, by the idea
Of nothing at all,
Yet are saved by the
Judgment of good men.
CHRIST’S JOURNAL
VOICES FROM THE PAST
SHAKESPEARE’S JOURNAL
? 474 ?
? 475 ?
? 471 ?
VOICES FROM THE PAST
SHAKESPEARE’S JOURNAL
? 488 ?
? 487 ?
? 479 ?
VOICES FROM THE PAST
SHAKESPEARE’S JOURNAL
? 496 ?
? 497 ?
? 491 ?
VOICES FROM THE PAST
/> SHAKESPEARE’S JOURNAL
? 506 ?
? 507 ?
? 501 ?
VOICES FROM THE PAST
LINCOLN’S JOURNAL
? 604 ?
? 603 ?
? 519 ?
? 555 ?
? 597 ?
VOICES FROM THE PAST
LEONARDO DA VINCI’S JOURNAL
? 660 ?
? 621 ?
? 659 ?
? 623 ?
? 663 ?
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