Tears and Guns

About six months ago I was watching the WWI or WWII documentary (in color I might add).  I won't forget this entry a distraught wife wrote about her husbands departure.. it is tragically beautiful.

I sit and stare stupidly at his luggage by the wall. He takes out his

prismatic compass and explains it to me, but I cannot see, and

when a tear drops on to it he just shuts it up and puts it away.

Then he takes a book out of his pocket. You see, your

Shakespeare's Sonnets are already where they will always be. Shall I

read you some? He reads one or two to me. His face is grey and

his mouth trembles, but his voice is quiet and steady. And soon I

slip to the floor and sit between his knees, and while he reads his

hand falls over my shoulder and I hold it with mine.



I hide my face on his knee, and all my tears so long kept back

come convulsively. I cannot stop crying. My body is torn with

terrible sobs. I am engulfed in this despair like a drowning man by

the sea. My mind is incapable of thought ...



Shall I undress you by this lovely fire and carry you upstairs in my

khaki overcoat? So he undoes my things, and I slip out of them;

the he takes the pins out of my hair, and we laugh at ourselves for

behaving as we often do, like young lovers ...



So we lay, all night, sometimes talking of our love and all that had

been, and of the children, and what had been amiss and what right.

We knew the best was that there had never been untruth between

us. We knew all of other, and it was right. So talking and crying

and loving in each other's arms we fell asleep as the cold reflected

light of the snow crept through the frost covered windows.