I saw through dripping slender trees whose hanging tresses seemed but only more of mist, darkened, through the wet and slender pointed leaves pointed toward the dark wet earth, through their edges and their curtain parting I perceived the platform. I know not what it had been; now it seemed a platform for the women.
        Perhaps it had been a forum, a stage, the broad floor of shrine or chapel for the stone was worn and pitted now from baring to the pitiless elements, storm, wind, sun, pitiless all but the women seemed not to care and the broken pillars yet rose up along the verges more than twice as tall as they. Gray. The platform, the pillars darkened at their shattered cornices by moss, cracked their lengths, stained their bases by roots of vines which coiled them in sly embrace. Gray were the broad and shallow steps, the 6 cracked steps which opened the platform to any who sought what?
        What had it to offer?
        It may be its purpose now was not to offer anything at all.
        The women seemed not to care.
        They sought what was significant, compelling, in each other's eyes and words, in voices and cast of eye. How light of the gray day glinted focused there. It was more than fire to gather round, it drew far more than fire might.
        It did not lessen my ignorance nor illumine a path away from it.