It was his sayings one remembered.
It was his sayings one remembered.
Like the kiss of a wave—
chill and sharp,
and yet solemn.
He could be intolerable, he could be impossible;
but adorable to walk with
on a morning like this.
Everywhere there was a beating,
a stirring of galloping ponies,
wrapped up
in the soft mesh
of the grey-blue morning air,
a flight of gulls across the sky
in this extraordinary silence,
and peace;
and in this purity bells struck,
the sound
fading
up there among the gulls.
But it was plain enough, this beauty,
and tears filled his eyes
as he looked at her.
She seemed all light,
glowing,
like some bird that has flown in,
and attached itself,
for a moment,
to a bramble.
There was a touch of the jay
about her eyes;
blue-green, light, vivacious,
never seeing him,
languishing
in the melting sky,
bestowing upon him their inexhaustible charity
and laughing goodness,
signaling their intention to provide him,
for nothing,
for ever,
with beauty, more beauty,
as she turned her head from side to side
among the irises and roses,
eyes half-closed
snuffing in the delicious scent,
the exquisite coolness,
which rose—like a moon—
hanging above them.
And then, opening her eyes,
her look,
passing through all that time
and emotion,
reached him doubtfully,
settled on him tearfully,
and rose and fluttered away
as a bird touches a branch
and rises and flutters away.
As they looked, the whole world
became perfectly
silent;
mystery had brushed them with her wing;
and now, when millions of things
had utterly vanished, she remembered –
how strange it was –
a few sayings of his about cabbages.
Adapted from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway
by Noelle Chandler
