1606: Feathers or Lead | Jack Gilbert
"Feathers or Lead"
Jack Gilbert
Him, she said, and him. They put us in the second car
and followed her back to the villa. Our fear slowly
faded during the weeks. Everyone was kind but busy.
We could go anywhere on the first floor
and on the grounds this side of the fence.
They decided on me and sent the other boy away.
Before I had only glimpsed her at the upper windows.
Now we ate together at opposite ends of the table.
Candlelight eased her age, but not her guilt.
Once she said the world was an astonishing animal:
light was its spirit and noise was its mind.
That it was composed to feed on honor, but did not.
Another time she warned me about walking on the lawns
at night. Told me of heavy birds that flew after dark
croaking, "Feathers or lead, stone or fire?"
Mounting people who gave the wrong answer and riding
them like horses across the whole country, beating them
with their powerful wings. We would play cards
silently on rainy days, and have sardine sandwiches
at four in the morning, taking turns reading aloud
from Tolstoy. "What need do we have for consulates?"
she said once before going upstairs, the grand room
beginning to fill with the dawn. "Why insist
on nature? A flower must be real or white, but we
can be anything. Our victories are difficult
because the triumph is not in possessing excellence.
It is found in reluctance." Month after month
we lived like that. And with me telling her
what it was like out there among the living.
She was steadily failing, like a Palladian palace
coming apart gracefully. The last morning she stood
by the tall windows. "I will not give you my blessing,"
she said, "and I refuse you also my reasons. Who are you,
who is anyone to make me just?" When they came for her,
she smiled at me and said, "At last."
I hear their voices//like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle//passing through the tall grasses and ferns/after the train has passed.
Jack Gilbert
Him, she said, and him. They put us in the second car
and followed her back to the villa. Our fear slowly
faded during the weeks. Everyone was kind but busy.
We could go anywhere on the first floor
and on the grounds this side of the fence.
They decided on me and sent the other boy away.
Before I had only glimpsed her at the upper windows.
Now we ate together at opposite ends of the table.
Candlelight eased her age, but not her guilt.
Once she said the world was an astonishing animal:
light was its spirit and noise was its mind.
That it was composed to feed on honor, but did not.
Another time she warned me about walking on the lawns
at night. Told me of heavy birds that flew after dark
croaking, "Feathers or lead, stone or fire?"
Mounting people who gave the wrong answer and riding
them like horses across the whole country, beating them
with their powerful wings. We would play cards
silently on rainy days, and have sardine sandwiches
at four in the morning, taking turns reading aloud
from Tolstoy. "What need do we have for consulates?"
she said once before going upstairs, the grand room
beginning to fill with the dawn. "Why insist
on nature? A flower must be real or white, but we
can be anything. Our victories are difficult
because the triumph is not in possessing excellence.
It is found in reluctance." Month after month
we lived like that. And with me telling her
what it was like out there among the living.
She was steadily failing, like a Palladian palace
coming apart gracefully. The last morning she stood
by the tall windows. "I will not give you my blessing,"
she said, "and I refuse you also my reasons. Who are you,
who is anyone to make me just?" When they came for her,
she smiled at me and said, "At last."
I hear their voices//like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle//passing through the tall grasses and ferns/after the train has passed.