update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/005.md

@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ While I fetched us both such a glass, I said, "What is it that brings you here?
 
 "Oh, very much so. I remember being her, yes, but that was nigh on three centuries ago, and I do not quite understand who she has become, myself." I handed over the glass of water and gestured toward the couch, where we sat on either end, half-facing each other.
 
-"She was still pleasant to be around, at least," The Woman said. "She said that I should seek you out, along with Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress, and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps. You are the last on my list."
+"She was still pleasant to be around, at least," The Woman said. "She said that I should seek you out, along with Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps. You are the last on my list."
 
 "That is curious. What was the reasoning for those names?"
 
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ She smiled — another blessing! — and nodded to me.
 "We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading *is.* She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:
 
 {{% verse %}}
-Too many suits move in too many lines.
+"Too many suits move in too many lines.
 They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,
 hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta.
 Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding
@@ -87,22 +87,27 @@ slack-jawed mouths already open,
 squawking at wayward children
 or bemoaning The Market,
 whatever that may be.
-At some point, who cares how long ago,
+
+"At some point, who cares how long ago,
 death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.
 Who knows how well they knew him,
 their backs turned, studiously
 deciding that he is no longer of them?
-One could never guess.
-We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,
+
+"One could never guess.
+
+"We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,
 that the room is tastefully furnished,
 the casket silver, the bar, open,
 quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,
 or at least none look it.
-"Good man, good man," they mutter,
+
+""Good man, good man," they mutter,
 doing all they can to convince each other
 through well-rehearsed performances,
 that this must be the case.
-The silently bereaved already sit graveside."
+
+"The silently bereaved already sit graveside."
 {{% /verse %}}
 
 I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. "There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?"