She lifted and rose translucent, descended fluidly, enclosed
like alabaster wings the breath of life itself
inspiration the inestimable ether long
elusive, denied, ever sought still,
the source of life, not
water, no, this
breath, vision,
incidence, is the very
source of life giving it form once giving it
meaning nothing else was necessary or possible.
They
were thus upon scented silken sheets,
in sun, in mottled glades
and glens, in moonlight, in
the deep caverns, in the waves rumpling the
sandy shore, at the laden table, upon
pillows scattering the rug, in reading, in
singing, in gazing deep
into the wells and gardens of each other.
Violet's
sister did not sail away until the last.
No.
She should have, but she didn't.
She should have died, but she didn't.
She couldn't understand why she hadn't.
She sometimes thought she had and was mistaken.
She came not able to know if she were mistaken
and when.
She was left
more alone than anyone should be.
Anyone.
Confusion.
There
is no soul without the other 1/2. No
tide without ebb and flow, no music without
thee and me, no life without the tide,
no soul without the flow coursing
me and thee; there is no me without thee
there is no other.
"Now," she said entering
and the beneficence of her smile enlightened the bowers,
and the bounty of her being was generosity which transformed.
"Now,"
she said, and they began.
Until
Xandria died.
She died.
They said she died of love, that
she had never been strong, that she was poisoned,
that she fell.
None of these
were true.
Xandria died.