Cartographies

The Destination of Souls

24 The Destination of Souls They flee the momentary deaths, the crimes of passion performed at water’s edge, the marginalia of lives lived and shed like second skins. Come with us, they say. And we, who whisper softly to these specters, though they hear us with imprecision, mumble, Not yet, not yet. They flee, while we stay put. We know we’re going to die someday— that’s why we pack our bags with delicately furtive motions. They know what deaths to flee, what lives to ambush: lives swollen into winter fruit, full-grown, robust. What are they trying to tell us, their breath fraying our voices? We’d like to say Get lost, and ride our worries bareback into dust. They want our deaths upon their ribs, the layered look. High windows, rapid clouds, a laughable distinction between nouns. Life an endless quarrel with the dark. 25 This is where they dash to in lonely verticals of light, diaries of rain in hand: in and out of each astonished century, to the Café of Unborn Precincts. Meanwhile, the sob of the saw, the calendar crowded with sparrow talk, the evening sun, a chilled glass of sherry, and, yes, the indifferent beauty of the world. ...