(Dark Chapter)
I
The poor child’s dying, not far from me. Just yesterday I saw her at Sión College; dark among the fair-skinned, humble among the proud, restrained among the flamboyant. But she exuded a natural elegance, lively intelligence, and one of the good nuns spoke to me with love and feeling of her tender hope.
II
In the middle of a dream of paradise, the pale spirit of the tomb surprised her. Did God take her away because she was one of His elect? Pagan verse and Catholic belief come together in my mind. Death is so terrible when it arrives before the sacred innocent flowering of youth! The age of twelve is when the god Céfiro and the princess Psyche become known to a child. It’s the age when the lemon tree first buds. The bird that flies for the first time is a sister of the child who turns twelve.
III
The child is dying! Her mother weeps and cries out, “Oh, my little girl!” And her heart’s in pieces. I can’t write artificial phrases in a chapter like this.
I’ve no use for prose that doesn’t spring from the depths of my heart.
What I’m now writing is what I witness and feel. I suffer along with the unfortunate woman who has to see her daughter dying; I suffer with all those who see her dying; I suffer because of the capriciousness of death, which cuts down a new flower to throw it into a black river bound for who knows where.
IIII
But every poet – and if they don’t have it, they should steal it – is possessed of a sublime, admirable faith. And I, the last of all, when this innocent dies, place flowers of Hope on her tomb, flowers of Hope that sprouted for the first time in the place where Christ’s cross was planted.
owenlindsayboyd 