The Others

What's Done before Departure, III

The Others

Part II

III

Dear Pit's tender age helped Loo decide

Which door, through tales, to open wide

And which to keep locked. So she told

_The hearer who, despite being resolved

Not to understand, pretended listening_

About the seven Hanging Odes, picturing

Their old holy resting place in details;

A cube draped in a silk and cotton veil,

Once unroofed, now sun-proof, though

Clothed in black and black is, I'll retell,

An absorber of heat, a reminder of hell.

Yet, of the hanged poets she mentioned

None, especially not the romantic one:

Antarah, whom she thought was astray.

How was he a hero if he did never pray?

And how to explain where the uninformed 

Soul went after having sinned and roamed 

 Aimlessly the earth, till one day arrested?

And how lasting was the love he quested

If to reach the heavens it must be devout first?

Ô those heavens we seek! 

Ô the heavens Pit cursed!

As those questions, ill-timed and unvoiced,

Crossed Loo's mind and let it drift, moist-

Eyed her panic grew, seconds ago deadpan.

And as tears unfallen so oft render a man 

 Unable of unconcern, and the woman concerned

Quite angel-like, the boy's mood softened

And he found pretty the tendrils of auburn hair

That framed Loo's face, which she kept grim

While standing for God, evoking Queen Esther

Whom Pit had read about; how She enthralled him!

Only in that moment, the two were in touch,

While the third's nail released the door latch,

Announcing to both another time of departure

And was, if Loo pursued, ready to thwart her,

Stressing so the might of external interruptions

With no words, only actions following actions.

That makes stranger all strange human affairs

For we feel things, hear voices and see stares

But so little we do, so little we do

And one can ask Pit about what to him did Loo.