Read Or to Begin Again for Free Online

bandages around both these wounds.
Because soldiers take orders to kill.
Just then a huge limb of a tree fell to the ground, making a terrible thud.
The Voice, now far off, called
    Â 
    Â 
    And sport no more seen
On the darkening green.

    What, Alice wondered, is the difference between
adventure and dementia ? They
sound so much alike.
Not really, the Voice replied, at least not so as I can tell. It’s only that
middle syllable, the
men and the ven .
Bob Dylan makes those kinds of rhymes all the time.
Who?
He’s a singer.
Never heard of him.
You will, Alice said dryly.
I’d quote you some lines, but permissions are prohibitive. I suppose
I could sing to you
and then no one would know. She sang.
Bugs illumined in the setting sun, minute integers of life.

    As she went along, Alice felt
the heavy gate of night close behind her. She
wondered if it were locked, and if
she would ever
find her way back through it to daylight. Ahead,
she could see very little.
She lay down on the damp ground and looked up.
Stars pulsed like tiny flares reflected in a sea, illuminating nothing.
Everything is suspended but changing, she thought.
She pulled at a damp blade of grass.
Nowhere-never droned around her
and blew on her skin.
A spray
of notes, or motes, issued into the air.
A nervous watery breath
lifted stray hairs
and set them out on the grass.
Perhaps, she thought, I am dissolving.
She began to hum. The Moon appeared,
exhaling a trail of thin cloud.
    Â 
    Â 
    I am glad to have your company, Alice said.
And I am glad to have yours, answered the Moon.
You are entire, Alice said with a trace of envy.
It was ever thus, answered the Moon glumly.
But you wax and wane.
Yes, wax and wane and wax and wane ad infinitum. Nothing changes.
But everything changes, depending on whether you are only a thin curl in the sky or
a great luminous ball.
Changes for you, maybe, but I remain the same, a monocle staring down while the
sun comes and goes.
But the sun doesn’t move, you do.
Whatever, said the Moon. You go around the sun and I follow along like a dog on
a leash. Without you and the sun, I am a paltry gray rock.
It is a terrible case of codependence.
You have very low self-esteem, Alice said. Everyone here thinks the world of you;
you are always mentioned in poems and songs.
I know. It makes me cringe with shame. Moon this moon that, lovers and
moonlight, nocturnes and sonnets. It’s a total cliché. Stick an r in and you get
moron .
Alice stood up, casting a long black shadow.
Look how tall I am!
I will never be tall, answered the Moon, and disappeared behind a heavy cloud,
erasing Alice’s shadow and sending her back into the total dark.
An owl hoo hooed from a distant tree.
Alice felt afraid.
    Â 
    Â 
    What’s it to you if I live in a pit?
What’s it to you if I cry?
What does it matter if I never get fatter?
What’s it to you if I die?
    Â 
    Â 
    What’s it to you if I fall in a ditch?
What’s it to you if I’m sad?
What does it matter if I never get rich?
What do you care if I’m mad?
This ditty seemed to come from nowhere.
    Â 
    Â 
    What do you care if I’m far off or near?
What’s it to you if I’m weary?
Does it matter at all if I’m caught in a trap?
If I’m a lunar moth or a fairy?
    Â 
    Â 
    Alice spun around and fell down.
I do care! She cried, I do!
Is that true? You do?
Yes, tell me where you are.
I am here in your ear.
In my ear?
She touched her left ear.
Ow! Ow!
Sorry, Alice said. What are you?
    Â 
    Â 
    What do you care if I’m a flea or a gnat?
Or a very small, excellent spider?
I am not a mouse or a rat
and I don’t know what rhymes with spider.
    Â 
    Â 
    That is called an exact rhyme, Alice said.
Is it now? How?
Because you used the same word twice: spider and spider .
Just then a bluish light, no bigger than a drop of water, flitted in front of her.
You’re a firefly! Alice exclaimed.
    Â 
    Â 
    Firefly! Firefly! burning