Clair de Lune... Claude DebussyA Woman Alone
When she cannot be sure which of two lovers it was with whom she felt this or that moment of pleasure,
of something fiery streaking from head to heels,
the way the white flame of a cascade streaks a mountain side seen from a car across a valley,
the car changing gear, skirting a precipice, climbing . . .
When she can sit or walk for hours after a movie talking earnestly and with bursts of laughter with friends, without worrying that it's late, dinner at midnight,
her time spent without counting the change . . .
When half her bed is covered with books and no one is kept awake by the reading light and she disconnects the phone, to sleep till noon . . .
Then self-pity dries up, a joy untainted by guilt lifts her.
She has fears, but not about loneliness;
fears about how to deal with the aging of her body—
how to deal with photographs and the mirror.
She feels so much younger and more beautiful than the looks.
At her happiest—or even in the midst of some less than joyful hour, sweating patiently through a heatwave in the city or hearing the sparrows at daybreak, dully gray, toneless, the sound of fatigue—
a kind of sober euphoria makes her believe in her future as an old woman, a wanderer seamed and brown,
little luxuries of the middle of life all gone,
watching cities and rivers, people and mountains,without being watched;
not grim nor sad,an old wine drinking woman, who knows the old roads, grass-grown, and laughs to herself . . .
she knows it can't be:that's Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedone by from The Water Babies,
no one can walk the world any more, a world of fumes and decibels.
But she thinks maybe she could get to be tough and wise, some way, anyway.
Now at leasts he is past the time of mourning, now she can say without shame or deceit,
O blessed Solitude
by Denise Levertov
Henry Mancini/Johny Mercer..... Moon River
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