It would nearly always end like this — with an outburst of speech. He would come to the bench and sit quietly a while, his arms tightly folded and his feet clenched; but after a time he would be impelled to jump up hugging his book, his lips moving as he began to pace, intently examining the ground. Before long the rhythm of his walk would alter, and while his free arm gestured grandly, a series of expressions, each eloquent of feeling, would pass rapidly across his face. Finally some real emotion would cause his eyes to smart, eventually to water, and his mutterings would swell and sprout and put out leaves, taking their place in an oratory that was personal, ornate, and violent. Sometimes he would go directly to a corner of the garden where the gravestones of what it amused him to call his ancestors were placed, and there he would nonchalantly rest his foot upon a marker and in a low, meditative voice, with only an edge of surprise and wonder to it, like Hamlet's at the grave of Yorick, exercise his art upon a multitude of sacred topics. . the pews packed, the fans and hankies still, the feet still as he bore them on from thought to thought, as safely by their perils as a hare through a thorn bush.
Futile love, Horatio, futile love. My hand droops from its wrist. No lily better. Yet there's a finger stiffly thrust. Mark it. And the nail shine. How long had they loved one another… my smile's like a floating leaf… this flesh on the bones of Eve, our lovely mother, and death in the fruit of the tree? The delicate wires of my hand, the delicate wrist-hinge, the sharp cuff, the willow limbs… How long had she lain all trouble full, so lankly haunched, disconsolate, the yearning in her, the apple burning? Or did she squat with reverently mingled hands beneath its branches while it bloomed, to wait. . oh la, patiently. . her soul like a mollusk? My trunk is bending and my forelock's sliding. She knew what she wanted. I ought to be holding something while I talk, a fragment of our Universal Mother, something not too foolish, something common nonetheless and simple although richly emblematic. A piece of Palestine perhaps. I laugh, my teeth appearing. And the moon. Well the rose is too common and the phallus too foolish. Are you there, in the tinkler, Mother, just as much? Nevermind. My hands will serve. Fine threads throughout bind the tubes. See her in there, in my palmist's body; see her, how she know? Picture her, your parent, Horatio, your initial mother, wandering in the garden, far from her spouse: thin, hairless, hard, slat-limbed… a child… everywhere angular and skimped on, scarcely papped… a smooth-loined boy. But hollow, my friend, oh so hollow. Listen. There's wind bottled in her. And what did the serpent promise — to be like a god, to know good and evil — what was that? It was the apple Eve ate of. It was the apple, the fruit, the fullness, she wanted. Rub up the lamp, lad. Let's have jokes and poetry. Let progeny appear. That's one for Tott if he could grasp it.
Nell ate lettuce,
and on its leaves
Bel sat thinking
of enemies.
Nell ate Forcas,
and on her tongue
hell fell burning
for Christendom.
Nell ate Satan,
and in her lust
well was growing
an incubus.
Nell ate me,
and up her sleeves
fell fall turning
with all its leaves.
For an incubus, too tame. Incubus:
It ate Nell,
and from its bum
shit fell forming
Babylon.
Chuckling, I slide my next lines up the slippery sleeve. Inky the coils of the darkness up there. Hear her, hear? There's only a rush in the listener's ear. It was for that she disobeyed. What did she know or care about gods or good or evil, when growing was her concern? Suppose she had been warned not to cross a certain line, or not to sit unmaidenly, or not to pick her nose, or not to yell in the park — would she have disobeyed? For knowledge, for good and evil, would Eve have set her will against her Father's? Ah, Horatio, you and I know women. Not for that. But she'd have eaten the apple anyway — to be the mother of all living. And how perfectly the sign was chosen, think of it, Horatio. Pendent from a crown of leaves, this globe, so firm and smooth and red without, so soursweet and white within, holds at its core, like tears, its seeds. Oh it is very moving, Horatio. It makes me weep like an aunt at a wedding… or an uncle at a wake… which?… am I aunt or uncle, man or mother, Horatio?… it's too riddling.
Dressed in black hose and a loose white doublet, he was smiling gently, his eyes were shining, he looked directly at Horatio, with deep intent, prepared to go back over his speech to improve it, change its meaning if need be, anything, so that it might be eloquent. Flesh, he might begin, flesh is male and female in one fabric, interlaced like fingers, good Horatio, and death's their double shadow; therefore there are four of them together in this wedding bed. Straighten smiling; on tiptoe turn. Sweet my dancing clothes, sweet blossoms on my dancing branch, my arm unrolls. Bone cell, skin cell, gristle cell, blood cell… bone… bone … rap against the wall like a stave. Yet since flesh is partly canine — mark the tongue, Horatio, the abundance of saliva, the lowered snout, the panting breath — we must add a fifth. Bone… oh love this glove of flesh contains—the mother of the world. What kind of dog do you imagine serves this purpose best, one that nicely fits the hollow of the lap and has soft hair, do you vote for that? Finally, because death has a fat bald stubby nigger slave with neither genitals nor fingers, we must count to six… in one love bundle all enwrapped… and you will admit, Horatio, that only a god could have contrived such a tangle. Outside the bedroom door the wedding party beats on pans.
Be fruitul. Wasn't He a merry joker, the Old Man?
Sometimes while he walked he would break into wild half-whispered words instead, and turn with open arms to the walls and leaves, his gaze fixed ecstatically on heaven, adopting the posture of saints he'd seen in prints. I am the Francis of this place. I feed these vines and they grow tame for love of me. Or unable to stomach his own acting, he would turn to mockery. Oh give us a dramatic speech. And often he would oblige, charming himself with his rhetoric like a snake playing the flute.
What is the holiest thing in God's world?
Hands lift to his eyes as they did each Sunday when he spoke from his sacred stump.
Everything is God's — hearts, stars, and carrots, dry sticks and infinite spaces — hah? We start with that. What shows His limitless glory?
The private parts? More dainty japery. Pun of God. And what do we say to that? Bla-a-a-a-a-a—
He bends near the twigs of a bush and stares at them fiercely. Have you heard we compete, you and I, like Jacob and angel? You're entangling my air. Laughing coarsely, he snatches the head from a flower.