A woman, withering, with melancholy eyes. The bloom not quite gone, but beginning to decay. Silver strands; unfading lines. Time, marks her. And marks, too, the mind.
What has life given her? Memory; and childhood imagery. Of sea, as Lorca describes, with 'teeth of foam, lips of sky'. Dreams, with spiders of oblivion, spinning thread. And song, their ancient words still recalled; their melodies hummed.
Life gave, then took. And ceased to give; whilst others continued to live; and grow in ways expected.
The adult, half-crossed out, has no story; only a minor role, a minor song.
Picture credit: Testimony of a Minor, Honore Daumier (source: WikiArt)
See From Book of Poems in Selected Poems by Federico García
Lorca (Oxford World's Classics, translation by Martin Sorrell).
Written August 2021.
