14 March 2008. Warm yellow light on gleaming cars, pockets of wet dot the street, sun. All in the angle--of incidence, of repose. Girl in milky pink sweats, ambling past, just a touch roly-poly, drink in hand, gabbing with the figure alongside--also in sweats--her mom. But here I'm guessing. Two visitors from afar--a Belgian princess and her dowager aunt, discussing the succession. Or perhaps the stars in some unknown docudrama on the lives of women in Siberia--or...or...
...good Baucis and Philemon, that mysterious history of inadvertencies. Ovid's tender recycling of a story from the gods--Jove and Mercury come to earth, two simple travellers, spurned by all, but welcomed by these generous elders...who layer their table--olives and farmer's cheese, radish, endive, egg... Cornel-cherries, and all manner of nuts--honey, figs dates, plums, grapes... An apple, sliced, and then the wine, poured in what proves to be an un-ending stream...
It's this first part of the telling--where modest Philemon wipes her board with a sprig of mint, tucking a bit of pottery shard under one leg to steady it; or Baucis, reaching into the rafters with a long pole, pulling down their best smoked ham...
Worlds generous and intact, no moral here (at least at first), only the sharing...
(for Mauricio)
No comments:
Post a Comment