"The Vilnius Duet"
text by David Axelrod
Woman: |
You sat across the table from me
late at night, near the end of winter
a thousand years ago,
blue snow-light in the windowpane—
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Man: |
I remember how it glowed in your face,
snow falling in the square,
on birch-covered hills rising from the river,
snow drifting around the belltower—
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Woman: |
snow drifting in the streets, until the streets emptied, grew still, until it seemed
we were the last two still alive—
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Man: |
and as you spoke,
you poured out of yourself
like the soul of light I want to believe
is still woven inside of words—
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Woman: |
you seemed fragile as what lives
inside of our words,
that I wanted to press my hands
to the shining surface of still—
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Both: |
that transfixes an infant
with the gravity and calm
of living on the brink of time
before we were born,
to press our hands again
into it's shining surface,
to live again
inside the womb-light of the world, unafraid. |