A flock of blackbirds lit below us, covering the fallen stones like black hail.
We went many times to that castle and walked along its ancient yellow walls; she asked me for poetry and I repeated lines: what were they, I wonder?
Now...most noble one...the gods stand friendly today, that we may, lovers in peace, lead on our days to age:
I am constant as the northern star, of whose true-fixed and resting Quality there is no fellow in the firmament...the skies are painted with unnumbered sparks...they are all afire, and every one doth shine; but there’s but one in all doth hold his place: so in the world...
The stars came out, a summer’s night on Caesar’s place, and we heard frogs and the tittering of lovers, ourselves loving that place, our flesh, that empirical wisdom. We went so often we called it “our castle.”
Henley Street
June 5, 1615
At Christmas skirling bagpipers, piping a waulking song, greeted us at Dunira. Ellen’s room, in a squat tower, faced a narrow lake with ragged shore pines and a small island, wild geese and ducks resting on the water, cold, cold, moss blue water.
Sun crossed the bear rugs and tiles of her floor.