Fragment of a Women from Kos

At first all you see are the folds of drapery, high grass close together, swaying beads you parted as a child, field behind the house, then river. Sky. You were told finches lived there, red- winged, tipsy, upside down their hold on the reeds, even so they sang, trilling over and over your outstretched hands song poured like seeds from a basket or from a bowl, water. There was a woman, young, beautiful—you used to hug her from behind, closing your hands over the cry of surprise she gave out like perfume. Now here she is, rising from the dead landscape of memory, just this fragment of her, still kneeling.