pompous cat.
Saturday, June 28, 2003
"
...And the children came.
If Mary takes that doll, that dirty rag doll, I got to take my Injun bow. I got to. An' this roun stick -- big as me. I might need this stick. I had this stick so long -- a month, or maybe a year. I got to take it. And what's it like in California?
The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book. Pilgrim's Progress.
Used to read it. Got his name in it. And his pipe -- still smells rank. And this picture -- an angel. I looked at that before the fust three come -- didn't seem to do much good. Think we could get this china dog in? Aunt Sadie brought it from the St. Louis Fair. See? Wrote right on it. No, I guess not. Here's a letter my brother wrote the day before he died. Here's an old-time hat. These feathers -- never got to use them No, there isn't room.
How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.
They sat and looked at it and burned it into their memories. How'll it be not to know what land's outside the door? How if you wake up in the night and know -- and know
the willow tree's not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, you can't. The willow tree is you. The pain on that mattress there -- that dreadful pain -- that's you.
And the children -- if Sam takes his Injun bow an' his long roun' stick, I get to take two things. I choose the fluffy pilla. That's mine. ..."