Love letter #2

When yearned my heart for a yesterday place, I thought of it sadly, and of how far away it now seemed. I thought of the procession of faces and scenes intervening, how they’d seemed to insert themselves between myself and that place I once was. They stretched out in a great long line, friezes or tableaux vivants, through which I could flick with the fingers of my memory, and in which colour and emotion were equally real. But when finally I arrived at that place for which I yearned, its colours were faded, and I could not remember the feeling I missed. I couldn’t remember the face which I sought, even though I could hold before me those of a hundred strangers.

But then I recalled the intonations of the voice I had loved, its childish softness, and all the rest I realized was mere appearance, colour and form. The feeling returned, deep and unyielding, and I sank into it as I would a deep sleep.

That voice is gone, now, lost scattered between the moments of her life.