Stories of your life

Spoilers for "Stories of Your Life and Others".




      Stories of your life


Being passed a book over a wall, reaching tall overhead,
a book of firmaments she fell into, or so I dreamed.

Through a city soaked by a punctured reservoir,
the adept of musica universalis travels to the tower.
Crushed with the news that there is no beyond,
she feels cloistered and unreal, and a tower grows in her heart,
a curse of many tongues, that she might never understand.

She drowns herself in the study, and surprised,
she recognizes the shape of words bubbling in her mind,
the rhythms of inner space, the logic of the contrapuntal forms
unfolding into the middle like a snail without a limit.
At her appointment to guide the pupils at the tower,
she can now perceive how their lives intertwine,
and how to tweak their trajectories to maximize
healing, growth, and the happy twinkle in their eyes.

With the insight, she deciphers the divine scheme,
and the angels arrive. She marvels at their octopus-like skill
to dance the eight movements of a symphony, one against two,
one against three, two against three, each pair playing off the other,
a ritual of relation, a form of the ultimate form.
They come for help, and they will have help from us,
they will have been saved. And she is serene, she does not regret
the pained back, and she will choose this day, as she had.

As she learns the angels' langauge, she analyzes life's circle,
the square of the triangle. The Canaanite letters guide muscles,
and the epicycles unroll like budding roses. She choreographs
the movements of the cooking automata, to let the tired folk
rest that bit more at night, with a gratifying nourishment.
She programs toys for little children, teaches kids the letters
as they mold the clay, and the sculptures play music.

The light scatters through the clouds of an abrupt storm.
A kind heart, a joyful ride, a quiet visitation of fallen angels,
a hand grabs one by the edge of a window, the floating in the air,
and she does not ask to give back, but to make your own decision.