Jane Yolen - Sister Emily's Lightship

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SISTER EMILY’S LIGHTSHIP

Jane Yolen

I dwell in Possibility. The pen scratched over the page, making graceful ellipses. She liked the look of the

black on white as much as the words themselves. The words sang in her head far sweeter than they sang

on the page. Once down, captured like a bird in a cage, the tunes seemed pedestrian, mere common

rote. Still, it was as close as she would come to that Eternity, that Paradise that her mind and heart

promised. I dwell in Possibility.

She stood and stretched, then touched her temples where the poem still throbbed. She could feel it

sitting there, beating its wings against her head like that captive bird. Oh, to let the bird out to sing for a

moment in the room before she caged it again in the black bars of the page.

Smoothing down the skirt of her white dress, she sat at the writing table once more, took up the pen,

dipped it into the ink jar, and added a second line. A fairer House than . . . than what? Had she lost the

word between standing and sitting? Words were not birds after all, but slippery as fish.

Then, suddenly, she felt it beating in her head. Prose! A fairer House than Prose-She let the black

ink stretch across the page with the long dash that lent the last word that wonderful fall of tone. She

preferred punctuating with the dash to the hard point, as brutal as a bullet. I dwell in Possibility.

She blotted the lines carefully before reading them aloud, her mouth forming each syllable perfectly

as she had been taught so many years before at Miss Lyon's Mount Holyoke Fe-male Seminary.

Cocking her head to one side, she considered the lines. They will do, she thought, as much praise as

she ever allowed her own work, though she was generous to others. Then, straightening the paper and

cleaning the nib of her pen, she tore up the false starts and deposited them in the basket.

She could, of course, write any time during the day if the lines came to mind. There was little enough

that she had to do in the house. But she preferred night for her truest composition and perhaps that was

why she was struggling so. Then those homey tasks will take me on, she told herself: supervising the

gardening, baking Father's daily bread. Her poetry must never be put in the same category.

Standing, she smoothed down the white skirt again and tidied her hair--"like a chestnut bur," she'd

once written imprudently to a friend. It was ever so much more faded now.

But pushing that thought aside, Emily went quickly out of the room as if leaving considerations of

vanity behind. Besides the hothouse flowers, besides the bread, there was a cake to be made for tea.

After Professor Seelye's lecture there would be guests and her tea cakes were expected.

The tea had been orderly, the cake a success, but Emily headed back upstairs soon after, for her

eyes--always sensitive to the light --had begun to tear up. She felt a sick headache starting. Rather

than impose her ailments on her guests, she slipped away. They would understand.

Carlo padded up the stairs behind her, so quiet for such a large dog. But how slow he had become

these last months. Emily knew that Death would stop for him soon enough. Newfoundlands were not a

long-lived breed usually, and he had been her own shaggy ally for the past fifteen years.

Slowing her pace, despite the stabbing behind her eyes, Emily let the old dog catch up. He shoved

his rough head under her hand and the touch salved them both.

He curled beside her bed and slept, as she did, in an afternoon made night and close by the

window blinds.

It was night in truth when Emily awoke, her head now wonderfully clear. Even the dreadful sleet in her

eyes was gone.

She rose and threw on a dressing gown. She owed Loo a letter, and Samuel and Mary Bowles.

But still the night called to her. Others might hate the night, hate the cold of November, huddling

around their stoves in overheated houses. But November seemed to her the very Norway of the year.

She threw open first the curtains, then the blinds, almost certain of a sight of actual fjords. But

though the Gibraltar lights made the village look almost foreign, it was not--she decided--foreign

enough.

"That I had the strength for travel," she said aloud. Carlo answered her with a quick drum roll of

tail. Taking that as the length of his sympathy, she nodded at him, lit the already ensconced candle, and

sat once again at the writing table. She read over the morning's lines:

/ dwell in Possibility -

A fairer House than Prose-

It no longer had the freshness she remembered, and she sighed.

At the sound, Carlo came over to her and laid his rough head in her lap, as if trying to lend comfort.

"No comfort to be had, old man," she said to him. "I can no longer tell if the trouble is my wretched

eyes, sometimes easy and sometimes sad. Or the dis-order of my mind. Or the slant of light on the page.

Or the words themselves. Or something else altogether. Oh, my dear dog ..." She leaned over and

buried her face in his fur but did not weep for she despised private grief that could not be turned into a

poem. Still, the touch had a certain efficaciousness, and she stood and walked over to the window.

The Amherst night seemed to tremble in on itself. The street issued a false invitation, the maples

standing sentinel between the house and the promise of road.

"Keeping me in?" she asked the dog, "or others out?" It was only her wretched eyes that forced her

to stay at home so much and abed. Only her eyes, she was convinced. In fact she planned a trip into

town at noon next when the very day would be la-conic; if she could get some sleep and if the

November light proved not too harsh.

She sat down again at the writing table and made a neat pile of the poems she was working on, then

set them aside. Instead she would write a letter. To ... to Elizabeth. "Dear Sister," she would start as

always, even though their relationship was of the heart, not the blood. "I will tell her about the November

light," she said to Carlo. "Though it is much the same in Springfield as here, I trust she will find my

observations entertaining."

The pen scratched quickly across the page. So much quicker, she thought, than when I am composing a

poem.

She was deep into the fourth paragraph, dashing "November always seemed to me the Norway

..." when a sharp knock on the wall shattered her peace, and a strange insistent whine seemed to fill the

room.

And the light. Oh-the light! Brighter even than day.

"Carlo!" she called the dog to her, and he came, crawling, trembling. So large a dog and such a

larger fright. She fell on him as a drowning person falls on a life preserver. The light made her eyes

weep pitchers. Her head began to ache. The house rocked.

And then-as quickly as it had come-it was gone: noise, light, all, all gone.

Carlo shook her off as easily as bath water, and she collapsed to the floor, unable to rise.

Lavinia found her there on the floor in the morning, her dressing gown disordered and her hands over

her eyes.

"Emily, my dear, my dear . . ." Lavinia cried, lifting her sis-ter entirely by herself back onto the bed. "Is

it the terror again?" It was much worse than the night terrors, those unrational fears which had afflicted

her for years. But Emily had not the strength to contradict. She lay on the bed hardly moving the en-tire

day while Mother bathed her face and hands with aromatic spirits and Vinnie read to her. But she

could not concentrate on what Vinnie read; neither the poetry of Mrs. Browning nor the prose of

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摘要：

SISTEREMILY’SLIGHTSHIPbyJaneYolenIdwellinPossibility.Thepenscratchedoverthepage,makinggracefulellipses.Shelikedthelookoftheblackonwhiteasmuchasthewordsthemselves.Thewordssanginherheadfarsweeterthantheysangonthepage.Oncedown,capturedlikeabirdinacage,thetunesseemedpedestrian,merecommonrote.Still,itwas...

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Jane Yolen - Sister Emily's Lightship

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