By the River Ouse
By
    Photo by nicknich4 on Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.













    March 28th, 1941

    The dawn sways a mottled grey, fog
    Becalmed over the Ouse (which bears
    Under lead sunless sky a sickly green tint—
    She feels in marrow its leaden labor),
    Fog mingling around the arterial
    Treetops- verdant, gifting their greenness to
    The water, in time with the riverrun,
    Or riverroll, rather, that roils evermore
    In countless tiny flickers of water
    Stretching, lithe, into the air and, falling,
    Glide forward, back into the Ouse, which in
    The now acute shine of the dawn sun catches
    The light like the scales of a serpentine
    Leviathan. She can hear it snake its
    Way upon the face of the Earth. The fog
    Dissipates, sparing only an earthy
    Apparition by the bank of the river;
    Leaping, beckoning in green ecstasies.
    She hears this too, in sighs; the pen shakes, sighs.

    The light braves through the blinds in angular
    Scythes, arrays across her angular face--
    Shall I write? Shall I write? Shall I? Shall I?
    She sits by the window, hands primly folded,
    Trying, vain plea, to hear the patient encroach
    Of the River Ouse, and its ancient song.

    There’s Lenoard, downstairs, putting the tea on,
    Shuffling in padded slippers to snuff out any
    Light disturbance- but still, the evidence
    Of his morning arrival shivers up
    The veins of the house to whisper and laugh.

    May I write? May I write? May I? May I?
    But the voices always respond in jest,
    Parroting her words back to her, twisting
    The ever-sharpening knife, sarcasm and bile.
    “For Lucy now had her work cut out for her.”
    “She was now formidable to behold.”

    She was now pitiful to behold, she
    Said with a wild glee in the pit of her stomach,
    And laughed and laughed and told the ceiling of that
    One incident when Strachey vomited
    In the Bloomsbury coat room and fell stone asleep.
    Liars, Braggarts, Fools, every one of them!

    How happy he makes me, the life we’ve built.
    How I stare at him across the table,
    Smiling in perfect silence, contentment.
    How he frowns, in love, when I get like this.
    How he stirs his tea, staring down, down, down.
    How I have become a black mark upon
    His days, a death’s head above the doorway.
    How I sometimes hate his hooking Jew nose,
    His hacking cough, his frigid hands, his tired
    Jokes, his tired eyes. Fatigue, failure, fatigue.

    Leonard finds the letter, fragrant, flapping
    Leisurely in the mellow noon-break breeze,
    Incanting happiness in perfect simplicity,
    And the figures, light and easy, slide
    Off the page to run down a sunless sea
    Where she writes with stones her name upon the deep
    In perfect silence and darkness- at ease, at ease.

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