What, sir, what?
He looked at my face.

“I think your name is Viola!”
He exclaimed, waving his hand.

He acted quite surprised,
when the Queen’s Viola herself
crushed into him, almost, as she said,

“My dear man, it is here, quite naturally,
that we keep our mysteries. And to keep mysteries
and to give secrets…I did you the whole
world over—in no time while you slept,
when, instead, I lay down beside you
to keep you company, quieter than the others.

You slept, and when you awoke, again I went to sleep.
When you awoke again, I again visited your bedside.
And then it was too much: my legs were too tired,
my form too pliant, my reveries too pregnant
with yearning, too exhausted by dreams to make
much of these close, fumbling tokens:
my sacred braid.

After that, you were conscious:
I helped you dress, and then—
you carried me off to the balcony,
and here we are, tonight,
where I took my first great pleasure:
I acted, rather than spoke;
I play, rather than set to music.”

THEN, magically, heavenly, Viola is able to wield her
musical instruments to render the fallen body of
a trumpe, a siren of ancient seas. As though, the title
of manuscript like the benediction, ‘Ubi Stancendo’
cannot be bought with gold, like a Talmudic scholar
who has escape from Heaven to Hell.

That was the first date.

: 10:35 PM 4/7/202210:35 ::