The Stuff of Ozone

Harper:

Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God, it’s been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening.

But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning.

And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so.

Angels in America, Tony Kushner

( I always start crying when she gets to the part about the souls being three-atom oxygen molecules )

We'll mend

Harper: I'm going to like this place. It's my own National Geographic Special! Oh! Oh! (She holds her stomach) I think...I think I felt her kicking. Maybe I'll give birth to a baby covered with thick white fur, and that way she doesn't get chilly. My breasts will be full of hot cocoa so she doesn't get chilly. And if it get's really cold she'll have a pouch I can crawl into. Like a marsupial. We'll mend together. That's what we'll do; we'll mend.

Tony Kushner. Angels in America, Millenium Approaches: III.iii

Heavy sky

Belize:
He's dying. You just wish you were.
Oh cheer up, Louis. Look at that heavy sky out there.

Louis: Purple.

Belize:
Purple? Boy, what kind of a homosexual are you, anyway? That's not purple, Mary, that color up there is (Very grand) Mauve.
All today it's felt like Thanksgiving. Soon, this...ruination will be blanketed white. You can smell it--can you smell it?

Louis: What?

Belize: Softness, forgiveness, compliance, grace.

Tony Kushner. Angels in America, Millenium Approaches: III.ii

Apples and Fall. No woman, though

'Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon'
Pablo Neruda

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.

A Time to Talk

WHEN a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?	5
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit. Robert Frost	10

Last

Elizabeth Allen Very precious unto me,
Though I know I drank not first
Of your love's bright fountain-burst,
Yet I grieve not for the past,	5
So you only love me last!
Other souls may find their joy
In the blind love of a boy:
Give me that which years have tried,
Disciplined and purified,—	10
Such as, braving sun and blast,
You will bring to me at last!
There are brows more fair than mine,
Eyes of more bewitching shine,
Other hearts more fit, in truth,	15
For the passion of your youth;
But, their transient empire past,
You will surely love me last!
Wing away your summer-time,
Find a love in every clime,	20
Roam in liberty and light,—
I shall never stay your flight;
For I know, when all is past
You will come to me at last!
Change and flutter as you will,	25
I shall smile securely still;
Patiently I trust and wait
Though you tarry long and late;
Prize your spring till it be past,
Only, only love me last!	30

Afternoon

Afternoon
Dorothy Parker
When I am old, and comforted,
And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed
And Peace to share my fire,

I'll comb my hair in scalloped bands
Beneath my laundered cap,
And watch my cool and fragile hands
Lie light upon my lap.

And I will have a sprigged gown
With lace to kiss my throat;
I'll draw my curtain to the town,
And hum a purring note.

And I'll forget the way of tears,
And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blessed years
Were further than they be!