red sumac
SCENE B
—MUSIC BEGINS—an Irish harp in a major key
Another likeness appears onscreen in color. She is smaller than the others; her contagious smile is full of joy. Her hair falls loose around her, over her shoulders and onto the floor. She has enormous brown eyes. Her name is LETTIE. She sprawls on an attic floor in her long white dress. Her pose is dreamy, her left cheek is pressed against the wide, unpainted boards of the attic floor where she rests her head on her arm. The attic itself is old and empty but brilliant smoky sunlight streams in through a pair of windows behind her with a blaze of woodland colors that spill and play about her white dress.
CHORUS (dimly illuminated)
Do we start from nihil
each new day as the sun reaches far
into our windows
with its life-giving touch . . .
or shoulder yesterday's yoke?
LETTIE (w/CHORUS LEADER, “CL”)
They lay the bricks:
[CL] arrow-straight they rise and stay.
[CL] Lilacs the gardener planted rush to bloom:
how soon their fragrance knocks
at the door to my favorite room
As you voyage south, my love,
I dream of sails stretched taut
where canvas, wood and sea
are the house your lips had promised
it would also build for me
We tied our horses
to an isle a sea of grass enclosed
on that glorious summer's eve:
though we lingered but an hour
how many centuries passed?
The tick of the hallway clock
reminds me of all the time I waste
while you with eventful hands,
with journeying eyes will feast
on things I cannot taste
When we merged our brooklets
into one clear and singing stream
no words were needed
for that new and natural tongue
spoke for us through touch
My sweet, the goldenrod
has just now bloomed: how like those
that draped Aeneas' brow
the locks I swept aside
to find your eyes
CHORUS
The earth is harsh
for only stone and rain live long,
our moments
less than the down of wings
a heron leaves on wind . . .
LETTIE
Tomorrow
there shall be news, I know't!
Don't ask me how, I do:
why ask of rain its reason
or why the robin's egg is blue?
CHORUS
The sun, lying low to rest,
is a yearling lost in quiet groves
that skirt these golden fields . . .
and unknown a world away
begins the sorrow a sunrise yields . . .
LETTIE
Snagged on a rusty nail,
the garden snake, disrobing,
reveals a shine of reborn skin:
were time that pocks our mortal flesh
as easy to clothe afresh . . .
LETTIE gently picks up a translucent snake skin and examines it thoughtfully.
Evening shadows
inundate these withering slopes . . .
how soon will snow-light leave
its silent glow
in lonely morning kitchens . . .
and I am left to listen,
at sunrise, noon and dusk
in every hall and room
when with fire's kindly mouth
the hearth shall speak of you . . .
CHORUS LEADER
They who wait for loves
enfold their longings into hours
setting tasteless, dull repasts,
laying ears to doors that never open,
to pillows never pressed:
a letter's come . . .
oblivious to the news it holds
the maples shake and sway . . .
and while young corn sends up its tassels
a locust chants away
LETTIE
Had I the choice,
a wave I'd want to be
to chase your footsteps
pressed into alien shores,
their hollows to fill with me . . .
LETTIE turns and props herself up on her elbows and looks out the bright window and we cannot see her face in the sun’s glare, only the aura round it. Her image fades, her manikin in turn.