But should the fiery essence of the soul think on its high origin, and cast aside the numbing stain of life: then will it carry with it, too, the flesh in which it lodged and bear it also back among the stars.
—Prudentius, 4th century, A.D.
It is not right for me to look upon the dead,
And stain my eyesight with the mists of dying men.
—Euripides
Morning, and the sounds of the valley float
slowly, like smoke, up the tiered mountain
to our windows. A cock’s crow, too early,
sets off a chain of barking dogs and donkeys,
the screams of a peacock, all reassuring
that the world below is awake and waits
to take us back when we are well enough to go.
Here at La Maison de Repos, each day
has the same beginning: alone, the eye opens,
sentient, to a room unchanged by any dream
or nightmare, relieved or disappointed
to be transported back to the waking dream.
An arm throws open a shutter, flooding
the doubtful mind with the brilliant
light of the Midi that changes white
shadowed sheets on the crumpled bed
into a still life of desire and absence.
Mountains and blue air and the sea,
faraway waves soundlessly pounding the lit shore,
the horizon blurred, the azure coast,
wash upon wash, bleeding like a watercolor:
these things I see as I steady myself
at the window, still wanting to be alive.
Soon eye and body join in a rhythm
of small tasks a child could do
—though no child lives here—
a shaky hand dressing itself, carefully
buttoning buttons and putting on shoes,
before it joins the slow parade to breakfast.
I am among the fortunate who shuffle
and shift for themselves; others
are wheeled, or walk on crutches, or are led.
It is at breakfast that the curtained ambulance
sometimes slips away, delivering one
from our midst to health or oblivion.
A place at the table is empty, a face
gone forever, but nothing is said
to note the absence of the missing one.
Our silent circle contracts, or grows
larger to accommodate a new arrival
who pauses, uncertain, in the door,
unsure of what will happen next, waiting
to be politely questioned or ignored.
All morning we are touched by the shadow
of the Annonciade on the hill above,
the monastery bells ringing prime, calling
a scattered few to prayers and morning mass,
good nuns and brothers ascending,
in ones and twos, the 500 winding steps
of the Chemin de Rosaire, one old soul
all in black holding her rosary
as she climbs, counting the beads and steps
that take her, one by one, to heaven.
It would be good to be like her,
to simply believe, to question nothing,
her life an unwavering road she blindly
knows. Soon others follow, the fallen-away
and sightseers on holiday, grateful
after the long climb to enter the cool cavern
of the church, crossing themselves
or genuflecting out of almost-forgotten habit,
lighting a votive candle for five francs.
Time’s silence surrounds them, held
in the steady flame of the Sacred Heart,
in the armored effigy of a nameless crusader
who lies on a low altar in the crypt,
hands clasped in an attitude of prayer,
as if at any moment the warrior
soul will wake, leap up, and lead
the sleeping body to Apocalypse.
Most visitors cannot stay very long;
they speak in guilty whispers
and move through the church like intruders,
move quickly past the apocryphal
remains of martyrs, splintered fragments
of bone and strands of human hair
in shining jewel-encrusted caskets,
the stoppered crystal vials of blood
and tears, relics handed down for centuries
by the silent monks who lived here once,
who watched the crippled pilgrims come,
kneel down, and pray for a guardian spirit’s
intercession, then sometimes rise
and throw away their crutches, favored
by a miracle. The old order’s gone,
only a few lay caretakers left
to take care of the grounds and sell
postcards of the view to tourists.
It is we, the ill and ill-disposed,
who now live closest to annunciation,
who watch the darkness closing in
each end-of-the-world night,
who need the mountain air for health,
the silence for our shattered nerves,
the isolation to contain contagion.
We are our missing useless parts:
a chest coughs into a cup and cannot
stop itself; two bandaged eyes
wait for the touch of a surgeon
who anoints or takes away clear sight;
the body helplessly submits to the probe,
to the omniscient X-ray eye that searches
for the small dark spot on the lung,
the glowing bone that will not mend.
Others wait for the pill, the injection,
the cup that will not pass,
wanting and yet not wanting to know
if dark malignancy remains,
if health, that faraway kingdom,
will be given back to them.
How can such suffering be chance?
Surely the spirit chooses its affliction
and makes it manifest, watching itself
fall and retreat from the world to atone,
as holy hermits did, for some secret
failing only its own heart knows.
It is easy by afternoon to become
delirious, to believe, as one lies
insubstantial in the shuttered room,
that the omnipresent flies travelling
mad circuits are sent from heaven
to reassure us that heaven, too, is imperfect.
We are close to heaven here, so high
above the world. Are we the chosen?
Chosen for what? Will our suffering
redeem others? Or only ourselves?
Surely in time we will each be blessed
with annunciation: I will rise
from this pallet of rest and recrimination
and step nakedly back into the world,
pulled down the mountain’s winding road
to the lit auberge where the concierge
will calmly greet me, asking no questions,
knowing my journey was difficult.
He will bathe my forehead with a cool cloth,
wiping away pain and the memory
of pain, until my clouded mind
is a clean slate, my headache gone.
Then will I take my place among the guests
who drink the good wine and eat
the steaming food, who raise their glasses
in a toast to health, to earth,
to my return. Quietly will I sit there,
like a ghost, as the last light
of the setting sun slips through me
before it, too, is lost behind the mountain.
The air will deepen into shades of blue
and darker blue, a cock will crow, betraying
its desire for dawn, and the bells
of the Annonciade will ring compline.
Then ah will fall silent.
Once more I will briefly belong
to the world before I lay me down
on the white pillowcases of the Elect,
the lights of stars and houses coming on,
shining unrepentant, as if Earth
and Heaven had joined in a solitary moment
of love, the deceived and deceiving
eye, as it falls to sleep, feeling
strange intimations of happiness.
Menton, France