The News

In different cities, on different forms of transportation, a woman read Daniel Deronda until the year became the arbitrary pink the calendar chose for the middle of winter. And finally she sat in the reference section of the public library finishing Daniel Deronda for days at a slowing pace between pieces of newspapers and foreign language newspapers whose syntax she enjoyed, not understanding. And when she didn't anymore she wrote in the margins of Daniel Deronda for someone who might never see. Thought of that person who might never see, staring equally at the rain, equally thinking of her and of nothing in particular. Outside the news fell apart. If one chooses to be shallow or noble, or one is born so, and if it matters. Translations are appropriate when Nature is dormant, or when one has nothing to say, or does not know what to say. These are three different things but sometimes they are the same. It is not wrong to want nice things, neither is it wrong to want to be good, or to feel that as a physical force of pleasure: Daniel Deronda, who does not know who he is, who thinks he does, and goes away on a boat. But the cover is a picture of a woman gambling. The air warms outside the reference section, and also the rain. Incomprehensible news. Whenever a book ends, silence, as if a stewardship had ceased. A person can feel the bones of one's hands by stretching them. If love comes again, know better than to speak.