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She Has Been Put Away Among Thorns to Keep Her Always In Our Eyes |
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She sleeps. There. Among the thorns. Put away. Let her sleep. She is removed from all. The world is elsewhere. Nothing now for her to do. She labors no more. Troubles no more. Yearns no more. She is done with all that. She is removed from all that. Let her be where she is enclosed by our special grace. A blessing. Not to feel -- a blessing. Not to know -- a gift we give her. Unconsciousness -- the wished-for condition. In her case. Because of her intentions, her past intentions -- we mean those she had when she lived. She lives yet, in a way, though you may not call it living. She breathes yet. See her breathe? See, as well, the eyes rolling under the closed lids? In deep sleep. And at intervals, less deep. She has been -- caught up. Is -- in the tides, moving a little this way and that, back and forth, without gaining the shore or making headway against the buffeting waves. Better that way. We would not wish it otherwise, because of her intentions once, long ago, to live her life apart. Apart from us. To leave us. Better that she does not wake. Better she doesn't. And who is there to wake her? Who cunning enough to penetrate the thickets, brave enough to risk the piercing thorns, pure enough to kiss her? I am not. If I were, I would not. (Resentful) She would not be modest! She wished to live apart -- refused our offering of grace. She would not behave! (Recovering, after a pause) Better that she be put away. Better that she be present to our eyes only. To exist in our eyes alone. Was she not warned? Was she not twice warned? (Angry) Let her laugh now, if she can! Let her take herself off now, if she can! (Recovering, after a pause) It is better this way. Better that she be put away and kept for our eyes only. (After a pause) Our only fear, that she dreams. Dreams her own. Apart from us. Yearns for her own. This we cannot abide. We are obsessed by the thought of her yearning apart. Better she should be dead -- better she should be dead than to suffer those yearnings. Long silence, then repeat. |
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