Seeing
the house, moving through its rooms, I
knew it belonged to Esme(e). Her essence like her
scent pervaded there and governed with the light hand
of skill.
There was a carven
box not large which belonged to her resting on a writing
desk before a window. It was of some exotic wood,
mahogany or something from Hawaii. It
was Esme(e)'s, but I did not know what she kept within
it. Draperies traced the casements and the heavy frames
of beds. Wardrobes lined the walls as
pictures formed lines throughout the halls.
Galleries whispered
of her past and theirs and
when I stood in 1looking to the smooth green country they
told me, in scattered partial phrases tattered by
the broken air, what they knew of her, what
they dared. I could not hear enough, the
voices spread upon the stone and thinned through airy
rivers.
I could not hear
what I needed but saw momentary a
fading token a slender growing being dressed in simple
elegance with long hair loosened.
White lilies,
black bulls.
Did Esme(e)
hear the voices without ceasing?
The songs and
renunciations of bones were things always known
to Cleo. And Violet did
speak of her sister though the voice she used then
was more soft even than those tones which brought
her reflections to us in the
meadow where the women sat in fond informal figure
composing 1 portrait not for
me or themselves exclusively.
They knew what
they did.
Oh yes, they knew.