Sarah Simon - Part 7

But sorrow came for Sarah from his words,
For as her children grew from year to year
Their eyes were slowly closed to all her world.
They slipped by trivial things away from her:
Stephen's proud charity, the rector's boast,
Winners of prizes, much at Sunday school,
Employed on errands by the white folks round
Who whispered stories of their " origin, "
And made a point of saving them behind
The back of their proud mother, thankful yet
That so much interest had been made for them
At courts where she could never go at all.
But once she went into her children's world,
To church and sat in someone's vacant pew,
Proud of her children and their mannered ways,
And with long pondered words upon her lips
To thank the rector and his pretty wife,
And Mr. Oldfields, and the others, too,
For all that they had done by her and hers.
Yes, she would wait for them outside the door,
And thank them, with the children by her side,
While the bells rang, and then go in and pray
With all the rest in proper gratitude,
For much she thought she should be grateful for.
So from a long neglected teakwood chest
That Trevlock once had brought her years before,
A scarlet gown, an Indian palimpore
With Siva legends ramping on its breast
And curious vines and faces interlaced
About the bodice, she with pride put on,
Snapped bangles on her arms, and thrust a comb
Of tortoise shell amid her wire-like locks
That curled like tendrils carved upon her brows,
And took the little girls each by the hand,
With James, her son, and hopeful went to church.
It seemed as if a Hindu goddess walked
Into the little church. The moving fans
Of half a hundred ladies stopped as one.
A red hibiscus burned in Sarah's hand
Like some enameled lotus from a star
Where gods and leopards loll in perfumed glades
And triple moons look down on lovers' walks
Amid gigantic blossoms and spice trees,
So heathen, and so beautiful was she,
No one could laugh, and so they hated her.
The church and nature were at visible odds;
And what the men thought all the women knew.
Poor Stephen Oldfields trembled in his shoes
And wished that he had never been so kind.
Here was a scandal glorious and true,
And beautiful as sin, and robed in red,
Burning before the altar in a pew.
This was the last time Sarah ever came
Amid the virtuous haunts of Christian men
Till old age dimmed her beauty, and the tale
Died from the lips of those who died with it.
For it so happened on that Sabbath day
The lesson dealt with whores of Babylon,
And scarlet robes, and beasts with many heads,
A feast of color ten millenniums old
That falls like manna on stark Western minds
Starving for staff-of-life in imagery.
Under the sure lay reader Sarah sat
And felt the burning focus of all eyes
Until it seemed the eagle lectern moved;
Mewed at her; waved its brazen wings, and screamed.
She rose, and running blindly down the aisle,
Gasped in the sunlight like a fish in air,
Then found herself safe in her house again,
Exhausted as if there had been a storm.
Almost she thought to find James Trevlock there,
Lying upon the threshold, battered thin,
Battered, but not by water. So had hate
And fear surged round her spirit, she was spent
As on the day the mighty tempest blew.

Numb for a while she lay, and then awoke
To find herself alone. Within the house
There stirred the silent wraiths of summer air,
Trailing the glimmering curtains in and out.
The sunlight beat across the empty door,
While low and liquid voices at the cove
Were overheard in quiet argument,
Like a long conversation heard at night
In which the listener strives to catch his name,
Fails, and then sleeps, and then awakes again
To hear those moonlight voices talking on
About he knows not what, or good, or ill.
So Sarah heard sea voices by the cove;
Then lapsed again into a tired sleep;
Then started up to catch upon the breeze
The sound of organ singing far away.
Her children were still sitting in the church —
Whether she left them there, or if they stayed
Themselves amid their friends, she never knew.
Only she felt she lost them once for all —
Knew that they lived in other worlds than hers —
And why it was they could not handle bees,
Nor row the boat like Simon, milk the goats,
Or plant so that the seed to flowers grew.
No, they would never really talk with her,
Or love the feel of loam about their feet
And rain upon their faces. House and clothes
And money for soft dresses, ribboned hair,
And books, and words, and other ways were theirs
Now and forever and forever more.

So Sarah thought while listening to the hymn,
And drank her quiet cup of agony
While the tune floated on the morning wind
And died into the voices of the cove.
These she could always listen to, and have,
And if she could not make her children hear
What wind and water, sun and earth might say,
Then she would keep that secret for herself
And let them keep their world away from her.
She would not tell them what they could not hear;
She could not show them what they would not see.
This was the limitation of her life.
The seed in them must grow its separate way.
She wept and put her dress back in the chest.
And waited for the children quietly.
But they came back with wonder in their eyes,
And tales how after church the people stopped
And talked to them, and had been very kind —
Kinder than usual — and then they laughed,
Saying their mother had been scared away,
While she sat silent, and the usual meal
Passed with the hour, and so passed that day —
And all the days that followed, different now.