Recitation

He did not fall then, blind upon a road, nor did his lifelong palsy disappear. He heard no voice, save the familiar, ceaseless, self-interrogation of the sore perplexed. The kettle steamed and whistled. A heavy truck downshifted near the square. He heard a child calling, and heard a mourning dove intone its one dull call. For all of that, his wits remained quite dim. He breathed and spoke the words he read. If what had been long dead then came alive, that resurrection was by all appearances metaphorical. The miracle arrived without display. He held a book, and as he read he found the very thing he’d sought. Just that. A life with little hurt but one, the lucky gift of a raveled book, a kettle slow to heat, and time enough therefore to lift the book and find in one slight passage the very wish he dared not ask aloud, until, that is, he spoke the words he read.