Friday, June 14, 2013

Listening at the Monteleone ii





           I believe I think,
           I want to ask. Yet
           what I want, is to
           know.


  She materialised soundlessly. Her eyes 
  fixed on me with a gentle questioning 
  look which I came to remember as having 
  belonged to my grandmother during her 
  sieges of illness, when I used to go to 
  her room and sit by her bed and want, so 
  much, to say something or to put my hand 
  over hers .. Now it was she who stood next 
  to my bed for a while. And as I drifted 
  toward sleep, I wondered if she'd witness-
  ed the encounter .. Nothing about her gave 
  me any sign. The weightless hands clasping 
  each other so loosely, the cool and believ-
  ing gray eyes in the faint pearly face .. 
  I felt that she neither blamed nor approved 
  .. No. Wait. She seemed to lift one hand 
  very, very slightly before my eyes closed 
  with sleep ..




















Tennessee Williams
Vieux Carré
  Part One, Scene Two
1978
New Directions, 1979©




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