The Most Sensitive
In an old half-round classroom
with ascending rows
of seats the observing teacher says
"from Vehlona’s writing
we can tell something about her
that she is
the most sensitive person
in the class”
and
Vehlona
embarrassed
to be so exposed
flees the wooden seats into the
streets and
Pahn sitting near hurls himself from the room
desperately
to catch her and tell her
he doesn’t know what he will
say
to tell
her
to tell
her
He can’t bear
to let such a sensitivity
fade from his life
down a road
into distance
and be gone
for
always…
Quarz Schist
Walking aimlessly over rocky
terrain through
scattered woods broken
by dry openings the small oaks
dropping rusty yellow leaves and new
grass
showing under the straw and leaf-litter
Pahn comes
onto a raised clearing and meets
Shocheeka walking toward him They stop
and shuffle looking down at the ground then
fix
their eyes
Shocheeka
greets him slowly putting her hand on his arm but
before he can engage her warmth
or focus on her lips
she motions toward a small rise
obscured by trees
saying
is over there
She is
waiting for you”
Pahn climbs the small hill
to an
open
outcropping
where
Djuturna
stands
looking
at the view
like a
soft
and
perishable
monument to love…
…sitting on a rock Pahn looks across the flat
at a prominent dark boulder of schist
sparkling brightly with quarts in the low afternoon
sun and sees behind
it
a long bluff of the same rock
like a milky way
across
the canyon
A
young man approaches
seeming insincere
and uncertain Pahn
is suspicious of him but feels a degree of reassurance
as if the beauty of the landscape
were so compelling
that no-one would have the nerve
for theft or fraud in its presence
and he deflects
the young man’s attention to it…
… walking along the flat in the direction
where he has seen Djuturna he finds himself
on a trail between rows
of small
cherry trees
blooming out of season
and
raises his hands
into a
blizzard
of petals
in the
wind
that are collecting in drifts
on the
ground
and he feels convinced
that he has directed the
young man
well
because no-one could fail
to be moved
in this landscape
Before Marrying Eithnia
Pahn is sitting in a theater
In
the row ahead Eithnia
is sitting with a friend
talking about
the
accoutrements of
marriage
Eithnia is confident
as a
woman who has found
her mate
Pahn is running through his mind
the certainties of their engagement
wondering
if he has forgotten something
important
It occurs to him
that he knows
nothing
of the way she manages
money
and he leans forward to ask her
mischievously of her nature
in finance
She appears
to feel
insulted
and he tries to return the mood
to the joviality of before
by
lifting her hair and
whispering
apologetically
in her
ear
but she waves away his concern saying
“It’s OK
now I know I don’t have to
worry”
and when he asks what she means she explains
“When I was a kid
I used to worry what would happen
if I ever lost my house
because
hotels were so expensive
but now I know
that hotels aren’t really that
expensive”
Pahn doesn’t understand
The show ends
and they all get up
and go outside
where he loses them in a
crowd
He looks over to where their car
is
searching for her dark hair …
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