"Two others," Gabriel corrected, and shrugged. "Latin was big, in those days." Despite himself his lips twitched at her words. Not in amusement. Okay, a little in amusement. More in sympathy, in sad resignation, at the hopes and dreams of a child.
"I wouldn't call it the pinnacle," he said. "Poetry's too subjective for that. April is the cruelest month; breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee ..."
As before, the way Gabriel spoke was nothing like his usual voice. The rhythm, the intonation, the way he used his words, were all the tools of a master orator. Sometime into the poem his eyes drifted shut almost unaware, and he leaned a bit forward, as if captured on the words himself. His chin tilted upward, his face to the sky, and his hands traced unseen lines and patterns in the air, rising and falling in accompaniment to the poem's emotion. Lost. Spellbound, almost--or perhaps weaving a spell of his own.
"... I sat upon the shore fishing, with the arid plain behind me. Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie These fragments I have shored against my ruins Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih."
The last words he murmured, and yet they seemed to imbue the air around them, one after the last; and when he stopped the sounds lingered, heavy and notable for their absence. All of a sudden Gabriel felt drained, and he let the step behind him take his weight. It had been ... a long time since he'd done anything like that. Empowered or not, it didn't matter. He wouldn't have done it at all, except there was something so friggin' tragic about how much Re-l's world lacked of the things that made humanity so ... human. So worthy of admiration.
But it was too close to his old job for his liking, and Re-l probably wouldn't get the significance, and he was already pulling away in mind if not body.
no subject
"I wouldn't call it the pinnacle," he said. "Poetry's too subjective for that.
April is the cruelest month; breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
earth in forgetful snow, feeding
a little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee ..."
As before, the way Gabriel spoke was nothing like his usual voice. The rhythm, the intonation, the way he used his words, were all the tools of a master orator. Sometime into the poem his eyes drifted shut almost unaware, and he leaned a bit forward, as if captured on the words himself. His chin tilted upward, his face to the sky, and his hands traced unseen lines and patterns in the air, rising and falling in accompaniment to the poem's emotion. Lost. Spellbound, almost--or perhaps weaving a spell of his own.
"... I sat upon the shore
fishing, with the arid plain behind me.
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih."
The last words he murmured, and yet they seemed to imbue the air around them, one after the last; and when he stopped the sounds lingered, heavy and notable for their absence. All of a sudden Gabriel felt drained, and he let the step behind him take his weight. It had been ... a long time since he'd done anything like that. Empowered or not, it didn't matter. He wouldn't have done it at all, except there was something so friggin' tragic about how much Re-l's world lacked of the things that made humanity so ... human. So worthy of admiration.
But it was too close to his old job for his liking, and Re-l probably wouldn't get the significance, and he was already pulling away in mind if not body.