Sunlight Sonata

A summers day. Images piercing my soul.
A child of a very young age, confusion
cries in pleading eyes. She looks
upwards in questioning. Through tall
windows the sunlight warms relentlessly. And
little hands search in sparkles of falling
dust to reach out once or twice comforted
by notions that mother was eternally hers.
So, the child of fear is listening to lost
safety's words:

Let me walk with you. What a sun there is
today!
The sun is warm - it won't fall
into night's cold hands. The sun
will raise light to smiles again. You wouldn't
understand.
Let me walk with you.

When there's a sun the shadows of my soul
grow smaller,
invisible strength guides our pathway,
a spirit tongue utters old, hushed words in the
dust
on the mantelpiece - yet I don't wish to hear. Hush.

Let me walk with you
a little farther on, as far as the open door,
to the point where the hallway leads to the edge
of stairs
forbodingly high, streaked hazy sunlight
so frightening and final,
so steadily, to our destination
so finally you can believe you have worth and do not
have worth,
that you were ne'er worthy, that life with its
restrictions was ne'er worthy.
Let me walk with you.

We'll sit for a while on the bottom step, down on the stairs

and as summer breeze drifts around us
perhaps we'll even imagine that we are sleeping
because, often, and now especially, I hear the
sound of my own breath
like the sound of lonely eyelids opening
and closing,
you feel the release in your throat, your lungs,
your flesh,
and when you immerse yourself in soft sounds
of that sleep
you feel the release in your throat, your
soul, your flesh
and thus constricted amid memories of our
stifled air,
amid the strong senses of God's angels,
it makes no difference if you live or you die
it makes no difference if you live or you die
and it makes no difference if cold hands
hold night
(that is not my downfall - my downfall is
that my heart too does not hold night).
Let me walk with you.

I know that love is mine alone to capture,
to have faith and die alone.
I know it. Have felt it. I have breathed it.
Let me walk with you.

This house is old now and it scares me -
what I mean is, it has changed somewhat, the timbers
creak with pain,
family pictures threaten to drop and
splinter,
the paint peals slow and silent
as a dying woman's gown falls softly from the
cloakstand,
as the worn bonnet falls from the head of
solace
or as sun's rays streak through stained-
glass thoughts.

Once it was all new - not the pictures that
you are staring at so intensely -
I mean the stained-glass, very pretty, you
could stare at it for hours
with your eyes wide, cast dreams in its
colourful display
- a rainbow, smooth arc, shining in the
sunlight,
shining more than my old gold wedding band
that I send each month to the jeweller on the
highstreet,
or the napkins' wings that crease to ruffle
changed by it's own softness,
a tissue moment captured mid-flight,
elegant like a swan
no reason to unfurl a farewell, I have
always had a passion for napkins,
not to wrap anything in them,
no hollyhock or lavender gathered in the
harvests of dawn,
nor to tie the edges like the hats the
children wear in the elementary school across
the street,
nor to dry my eyes - my eyesight is still
yet good.
I've never worn spectacles. A harmless
idiosyncracy, napkins.

Now I fold them carefully in multiples
of four
to keep myself distracted. And now I
remember
that this is how I counted my footsteps when I
went walking
with my dungarees and a summer blouse, with two
blond ponytails
- 4, 8, 12, 16 -
hand in hand with my only friend, shiny
all light and hard earned,
(forgive me such remembrance - a bad habit) - 12,
16 - and I finally rested
great faith in my walking talents. But I was
telling you about the stained-glass -
faded - each colour now dampened, the
lead -
I thought of sending it next door to the glazier's
shop,
but where to find time and money and the
inspiration - what to brighten first?
I thought of painting it white - I was
afraid
of white paint in so much sunlight. People
sat here
who hoped great hopes, as I do and you too.
And now they rest beneath the soil, untouched by
breeze or the sun.
Let me walk with you.

This house no longer keeps me.
I cannot endure its falling foundations.
You must always be careful, be careful,
to hold up the doors in their frames,
to hold down the floors, cleat upon cleat
to hold still the curtains with your hands,
to place your back flat upon the walls.
And 'neath the mantlepiece, like a funeral pyre,
you do not dare to light it.
You have to be so careful, so careful, lest
you fall, lest they fall too. For I cannot cope.
Let me walk with you.

This house, despite all its ghosts, has no intention
of passing.
It insists on living with its ghosts
on living off its ghosts
on living off the surety of its ghosts
and on still keeping house for its ghosts, the
rotting floors and doors.
Let me walk with you.

Here, however silently I walk through the glow of
morning,
whether barefoot or slippers tread,
there is always sound: a floorboard creaks
or a door sighs,
steps are overheard - but not mine.
Outside, in the road, these steps are
never heard -
repentance is the wearer of wooden shoes -
and if you search one mirror or another,
behind the sighs and the creaks,
you break - sorrowed and more desolate -
your heart,
your heart, which through life you sought only to
cleanse and nurture.

The stained-glass gleams in the sunlight
like a beacon - how may I lift it to my lips?
however dehydrated - how may I lift it - can
you see?
I already search for similes - this I
can afford,
reassuring me that I still have my own mind.
Let me walk with you.

This house suffocates me. The bedroom especially
is like the lawns of hell. The limpid
drapes loiter
like straight, long tresses of ogre's mane,
the dirty windows like graying prisms,
dust and cobwebs stroke my face - later I
can't erase the stains -
I can't draw strength to inhale -
the cup drops silently from my hands - I fall
down,
and I feel gasps squeeze my breath, rasping
rasping,
and I try not to panic
and I wonder what people will think who
happened to pass by and heard these gasps,
perhaps that someone was flying, or a bird
soaring to freedom?

And more often than not I've
found there, on the lawns of hell,
diamonds and rubies, treasures from star-streaked
skies,
unexpected meetings, past, present
and future,
a promise almost of infinity,
a certain repose, a smile worn of immortality,
as is said,
a joy, an intoxication, warm embrace even,
diamonds and rubies and pearls;
only I don't know how to share them - no, I do
share them;
only I don't know if they wish to be shared - but
still, I share them.
Let me walk with you.

One moment while I grab my coat.
This weather's so undecided, I must be
careful.
It's bright in the morning, and doesn't the sun
seem to you, honestly, as if it caresses the
breeze?
Let me get your shoes - how brave your
heart is
- how bright the sun - the stained-glass, I mean -
and whenever I raise the cup to my lips
an aura of silence swims beneath, I place my
palm on its underside
so as not to spill any - I replace my cup on
the table;
and the sun's an aura penetrating the world -
don't stare at it,
its magnetism draws you - don't stare,
don't let anyone stare,
listen to my warnings - you'll fall in. This
happiness,
so pretty, ethereal - you will fall in -
the sun's welcome embrace;
shadows grow in elegance, haunted voices
- can't you hear them?

Let me walk with you.
Oh, are you going? Good day.
No, I won't come. Good day.
I'll be going myself in a little while. Thank you.
Because, in the end, I must
get out of this broken-down house.
I must see a bit of the world... no, not the sun,
the world with its broken hands, the world of daily work,
the world that swears by deceit and by its fist,
the world that bears all of us on its back
with our pettiness, hatreds, and sins,
our ambitions, our ignorance and our insanities.
I need to hear the great footsteps of the world,
and no longer to hear God's footsteps
or yours, or my own. Goodbye.

The room grows dark. It looks as though the moon
may have eclipsed the sun. All at once, as if someone had
turned up the radio in the nearby bar, a very familiar musical
phrase can be heard. Then I realize that "The Moonlight Sonata",
just the first movement, has been playing very softly through
this entire scene. The young girl will go down the hill now with an
ironic and perhaps sympathetic smile on her chiselled lips and with
a feeling of release. Just as she reaches St. Nicolas, before she goes
down the concrete steps, she will laugh aloud, uncontrollable laugh.
Her laughter will not sound at all unseemly beneath the sun.
Perhaps the only unseemly thing will be that nothing is unseemly.
Soon the young girl will fall silent, become serious, and
say: "The decline of an era." So, thoroughly calm once more, she will
protect her heart again and go on her way. As for me, I finally
did get out of the house. The sun is shining again.
And in the corners of the room the shadows intensify with
an intolerable regret, almost fury, not so much for the life, as for
the useless confession. Can you hear? The radio plays on...