| And he saw, that in the daytime, she burned with the light of the sun, as she had burned with the light of the stars in the night, and he knew that though the stars may shine and shine, we watch the sun set some time after it rises, the day ends and the night begins, and he knew that she, coming into his world with the rising of the sun, would be leaving it with the last of that sun's light... 'Why do you have to go?' he said. 'I liked the way you explained it,' she said, 'This is a world of coming and going, and everything you love comes and goes, it ends, and it begins, and it lasts, and I cannot be in this world but that I last, and I cannot last but that I come to my end.' 'But surely you do not mean that you will die?' he said. 'No, I do mean that I will die,' she said, 'but that doesn't mean what you are afraid it does, darling. You will not forget me, and then another will not forget you... 'And anyway, why should we fill the time we have with worry after the time we have not?' she said, and walked on across the rocks, 'The town is this way,' he said, pointing to a different path than the one she had picked. 'I'm not going to the town,' she said, 'I'm going to the shiprocks, we'll take them back to town, if we walked, we'd still be walking when night came' 'The shiprocks are just lonely mountains in the desert,' he said, 'we can't take them anywhere.' 'I told you I was a sailor, darling, and don't think that just because I'm following the rules with regards to setting with the sun and rising with the night that I'm not going to sail with you on the shiprocks back to town, because I am.' 'You can have your own rock, or you can come on mine, but one way or another, let us go there, the sun is crossing the sky.' So he followed her, what else could he do, and they came to the shiprocks, which were mountains rising steep-sided from the land around, like ships above the sea, and they climbed to the top of the larger one, and this was silent work, taking all of the morning... And they looked out across the desert, from their high vantage point, and he said, 'This doesn't happen either, and there is a map of this place, and this rock has been in the same place on that map for a very long time now,' And she said, 'Well then, after we use it, we'll put it back where it was, and we'll see to it that it doesn't move again for a very long time... It would be a shame to have to keep redrawing the maps.' And she was laughing again, and then they were off... Now, there is nothing like sailing to make a sailor sing, or so the legends would have it, and it was certainly so on this day, for no sooner had the ship set sail, than she was singing this song: I've been asked a lot of questions, been told a lot of times hunger in beginning and hunger in the night and the first one to answer's the first one alight burning in beginning, lit up against the sky I've been held close beside you and that made it right this is our beginning and this is our delight and the last one to wonder's the last one alight still can't stop the sun I've been spirit and believer, been spirals in the sand pictures in the darkness and light upon the land I've been one and one another, been woman, child, and man the blessed and the lucky, the cursed and the damned in the street you find me wanting, high up you find me grand but understand believing is how you turn your hand when your prayers are not pretending, then you will understand shining is the sun I've been asked a lot of questions, been told a lot of times hunger in beginning and hunger in the night and the first one to answer's the first one alight burning in beginning, lit up against the sky I've been held close beside you and that made it right this is our beginning and this is our delight and the last one to wonder's the last one alight still can't stop the sun And she sang to the air all around them, and the song and the ship sailed over the shape of the land, and brought them closer to the town, and they sailed on, like the sun crossing the sky, and they came to the hills close by the town as the afternoon came, and as the clouds gathered, and as the rain started to fall, and they climbed down from the rock... (next page...) |