Classic Poem

A P ANTOMIME OF B EADS

Earth Voice:

Can she be
thoughtless of life,
a lover of imminent death,
Nun Snow
touching her strings of white beads?
Is it her unseen hands
that urge the beads to tremble?
Does Nun Snow,
aware of the death she must die alone,
away from the nuns
of the green beads,
of the ochre and brown,
purple and black —
does she improvise
along those muted strings
in the worldly hope
that the answering, friendly tune,
the faithful, folk-like miracle,
will shine in a moment or two?

Moon Voice:

Or peradventure,
are the beads merely wayward
on an evening so soft,
when One Wind
is so gentle a mesmerist
he draws them and her with his hand?

Earth Voice:

Was it Full Moon,
who contrives tales of this order
and himself loves the heroine,
Nun Snow —

Wind Voice:

Do you see his beads courting hers? —
lascivious monk! —

Earth Voice:

Was it Full Moon,
slyly innocent of guile,
propounder of sorrowless phantoms,
who breathed that suspicion?
Is it One Wind,
the wily, scholarly pedant —
is it he who retorts —

Wind Voice:

Like olden allegros
in olden sonatas,
all tales have two themes,
she is beautiful,
he is beautiful,
with the traditional movement,
their beads court each other,
revealing a cadence as fatally true
as the sum which follows a one-plus-one —
so why inquire further?
Nay, inquire further,
deduce it your fashion!
Nun Snow,
as you say,
touches her strings of white beads,
Full Moon
his lute of yellow strings;
and Our Night
is square, nay,
Our Night
is round, nay,
Our Night
is a blue balcony —
and therewith close your inquisition!

Earth Voice:

Who urged the beads to tremble?
They're still now!
Fallen, or cast over me!
Nun, Moon and Wind are gone!
Are they betraying her? —

Moon Voice:

Ask Our Night —

Earth Voice:

Did the miracle appear? —

Moon Voice:

Ask Our Night,
merely a child on a balcony,
letting down her hair and
black beads in glissando —
ask her what she means,
dropping the curtain so soon!