Monday, September 14, 2009

Page 26, Paragraph 1; Note

Back at it.

***

Page 26 (the one with the lovely Jose Villarrubia illustration on the facing page), Paragraph 1:

Here she says no more, but sits up and takes a breath. Now she softly makes a noise that has words in it, yet it's better than anything I've ever heard before, except from birds. The words she uses are like this*:


Oh, how may I find a mate, the journey-boy says

Up the valley's edge, in the shadow of the tree, by the earthworm's hill and all

And lie with her before I'm put to dirt all grey

Up the valley's edge, in the shadow of the tree

By the earthworm's hill and the river's knee

And there they lie, he and she, beneath the grass and all

It puts a chill in my belly to hear her. Now she's quiet and says no more, but I can still hear her song, because it goes around and around, like a bird with a broken wing, in my head. Up the valley's edge, in the shadow of the tree...



*I've tried to preserve the rhyme scheme of the original, but the meter's kind of fucked, I'm afraid.

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