《只是孩子》

• 《只是孩子》，帕蒂·史密斯，广西师范大学出版社，读完：2015-08，评分：8/10

笔记

We walked toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert pleasured in being noticed and affectionately squeezed my hand.
“Oh, take their picture,” said the woman to her bemused husband, “I think they’re artists. They might be somebody someday.”
“Oh, go on,” he shrugged. “They’re just kids.”

“Nobody sees as we do, Patti,” he said. Whenever he said things like that, for a magical space of time, it was if we were the only two people in the world.

The light poured through the windows upon his photographs and the poem of us sitting together a last time. Robert dying: creating silence. Myself, destined to live, listening closely to a silence that would take a lifetime to express.

Dear Robert,
Often as I lie awake I wonder if you are also lying awake. Are you in pain or feeling alone? You drew me from the darkest period of my young life, sharing with me the sacred mystery of what it is to be an artist. I learned to see through you and never compose a line or draw a curve that does not come from the knowledge I derived in our precious time together. Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke then of holding hands with God. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard, Robert, and don’t let go.

The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off, too. But before I did, it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.

_________