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The first poem he ever recited for her was called 'Canis Major', and she liked it. It was... happy. That was the word. Happy. It reminded her of playing games and Richard Baseheart and looking out the viewport at all the stars. Not that she had much time to play games or look at the stars. But that was what it made her think of.
Happy things.
The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.
She thought that it made him happy too, because when he recited it, he was smiling and his voice was strong and not even a little bit unsure. She didn't know him so well, but she liked it when he was happy because he had a very nice smile and it made her feel happy too.
She didn't understand a lot of the stuff he read, but she liked listening to it. On quiet nights in the laundry room, he would sit with his back against the washing machine and read, or recite, and he didn't sound the same as he did every other time he talked when he read -- it was like falling. It reminded her of falling, except not into anything, just into whatever it was that he was reading.
At first, it was happy stuff. Like 'Canis Major'. Sometimes it was stuff about Earth. Even though she had never seen Earth, she sometimes could see what the words were saying. At least until some other chore came up, then she forgot, but it was pretty to think about sometimes.
She got to know him better as time passed. But the words he read or recited started getting... sad. Lonely. It made her think of that scary time after Joel left where they didn't know what was going to happen to them. It was a short time, but she remembered it, and the words made her think of it, but she listened anyway because they were still pretty words, even if they were sad. She wished that she could make him want to read happy stuff again, but she didn't know how.
Shelter this candle from the wind.
Hold it steady. In its light
The cave wherein we wander lost
Glitters with frosty stalactite,
Blossoms with mineral rose and lotus,
Sparkles with crystal moon and star,
Till a man would rather be lost than found:
We have forgotten where we are.
Shelter this candle. Shrewdly blowing
Down the cave from a secret door
Enters our only foe, the wind.
Hold it steady. Lest we stand,
Each in sudden, separate dark,
The hot wax spattered upon your hand,
The smoking wick in my nostrils strong,
The inner eyelid red and green
For a moment yet with moons and roses, --
Then the unmitigated dark.
Alone, alone, in a terrible place,
In utter dark without a face,
With only the dripping of the water on the stone,
And the sound of your tears, and the taste of my own.
Eventually, he stopped reading out loud, and just sat quietly, reading in his head. She missed listening to him, even when it was sad, because he sounded so different when he read or recited, like he felt every word. It was... strange. But nice. But sad.
Sometimes when she had a little break from all the things she had to do, she thought about the words and remembered things. She had a hard time remembering things, and a hard time thinking sometimes, but there were moments where she could think easier, and during those times she thought about the poetry. And life. Their lives. His life. It was not a normal life for a human, to be in the stars and away from the ground, facing strange things all the time without even the chance to retreat anywhere.
She started understanding why he read the sad words now, in his own head.
Yet one thing I do fight for, tooth and nail, all the time.
And that is my bit of inward peace, where I am at one
with myself.
And I must say, I am often worsted.
It was one of the last ones he read out loud, and when she started understanding, she remembered it. But she didn't know how to fix it. It was not a normal life for a human, to be in the stars, but there was no way to make it normal. What he needed, only solid ground could give. The ability to retreat and find someplace calm and safe to think. She could try to make things easier, and she tried hard whenever she had the time and ability to think, but there wasn't much that she could do.
Time sorted out what she couldn't, and suddenly they were on Earth and part of the world she had heard the best things about in the words he used to recite or read happily against the washing machine.
She understood things better now; far better than before. Could recall with perfect clarity those moments of something like normality in the laundry room, a brief safe haven where he could hide and grasp at hope or vent through words his own sense of isolation: The unmitigated dark.
The wind never could quite extinguish the candle. In part, because there was a washing machine running, and poetry to give word to emotion, and someone to listen or who wanted to listen.
She lived a different life now, but sometimes they were together again, for holidays or just because. They laughed a lot, and all played games, and there wasn't much room in this new life for moments of poetry, but they found them anyway.
And looking up at the stars, Gypsy recited the words:
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.
And Mike smiled.
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The first poem is 'Canis Major' by Robert Frost. The second one is 'To the Wife of a Sick Friend' by Edna St. Vincent Millay. And the third one is a piece of D.H. Lawrence's "What Would You Fight For?" Given that he's a fan of e.e. cummings, it's a fair assumption Mike would be pretty well-read.