CHAPTER 2
Because.
In his half-sleep last night he had felt something writing on the insides of his eyelids.
Without opening his eyes he read the words as they scrolled:
Somewhere a band is playing,
Playing the strangest tunes,
Of sunflower seeds and sailors
Who tide with the strangest moons.
Somewhere a drummer simmers
And trembles with times forlorn,
Remembering days of summer
In futures yet unborn.
“Hold on,” he heard himself say.
He opened his eyes and the writing stopped.
He half-raised his head from the pillow and then, thinking better of it, lay back down.
With his eyes closed the writing began again on the inside of his lids.
Futures so far they are ancient
And filled with Egyptian dust,
That smell of the tomb and the lilac,
And seed that is spent from lust,
And peach that is hung on a tree branch
Far out in the sky from one’s reach,
There mummies as lovely as lobsters
Remember old futures and teach.
For a moment he felt his eyes tremble and shut tight, as if to change the lines or make them fade.
Then, as he watched in the darkness, they formed again in the inner twilight of his head, and the words were these:
And children sit by on the stone floor
And draw out their lives in the sands,
Remembering deaths that won’t happen
In futures unseen in far lands.
Somewhere a band is playing
Where the moon never sets in the sky
And nobody sleeps in the summer
And nobody puts down to die;
And Time then just goes on forever
And hearts then continue to beat
To the sound of the old moon-drum drumming
And the glide of Eternity’s feet;
“Too much,” he heard himself whisper. “Too much. I can’t. Is this the way poems happen? And where does it come from? Is it done?” he wondered.
And not sure, he put his head back down and closed his eyes and there were these words:
Somewhere the old people wander
And linger themselves into noon
And sleep in the wheat fields yonder
To rise as fresh children with moon.
Somewhere the children, old, maunder
And know what it is to be dead
And turn in their weeping to ponder
Oblivious filed ’neath their bed.
And sit at the long dining table
Where Life makes a banquet of flesh,
Where dis-able makes itself able
And spoiled puts on new masks of fresh.
Somewhere a band is playing
Oh listen, oh listen, that tune!
If you learn it you’ll dance on forever
In June…
And yet June…
And more…June…
And Death will be dumb and not clever
And Death will lie silent forever
In June and June and more June.
The darkness now was complete. The twilight was quiet.
He opened his eyes fully and lay staring at the ceiling in disbelief. He turned in the bed and picked up a picture postcard lying on the nightstand, and stared at the image.
At last he said, half aloud, “Am I happy?”
And responded to himself, “I am not happy.”
Very slowly he got out of bed, dressed, went downstairs, walked to the train station, bought a ticket and took the first train heading west.