"No...sit down."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

He leaned on Thasos: I felt that he hadn't been sober very long; he leaned forward, almost stumbling.

"Can I sit down?"

"Here, here," said Thasos, helping him, laying aside a package.

Silence troubled us.

I watched Thasos go and then Alcaeus said:

"I understand your loss. I understand what has happened to you.

Phaon's death has overpowered you. I put it badly...but we have shared...be patient...I understand...Sappho; I have brought you my Homer. Remember, when I got it years ago? Remember? I want to share. I should have given you this before...What good is it to me?"

"Alcaeus."

"Where is the book?"

"The package Thasos left?"

"Yes...take it...open it..."

I opened it, remembering how we had thrilled long ago, and, after a while, reaching out to him, grateful, hoping I could make him sense my gratitude, I kissed his forehead and his hands, his hands motionless, the sightless eyes confusing me.

He went on slowly:

"I've come to share my strength...it's a poor strength, drunk, blind, but it does go on. You, my dear, are blinded by grief. Let me tell you your grief can't be as bad as mine. Or, if it is, let's share...share...we've shared before...I'll take your dark away...hide it in mine...lose some of your burden at least.

"Sappho, let me help.

"Accept the old book, find hope in it... I have kicked aside death on the field...look at my eyes and then look at yours...you need no mirror.

"He's dead...dead by the sea...you have your love of beauty to uphold you. Let it live! Give it new life! Soon enough death will claim both of us, but, till then, let's find comradeship...come to my house tomorrow, read to me...

"Will you?"

I nodded, then remembered he could not see and remembered his gift and his grace and knelt by him and put my head in his hands and pressed between his knees, as he patted me, chuckling a little.

"I'll come tomorrow, Alcaeus," I promised.

"Good."

"I know your lot is worse than mine... I must find courage."

Beauty, I thought, beauty, what can I say to help this man?

"Yes, tomorrow; then I'll tell you, Sappho... I'll tell you what I've learned, living in my black sea. How my ship drags anchor. What I've heard. I've heard some strange things. I can sense someone moving, almost before he moves, a shift of air, let's say.

"Watch me play jacks with Libus, old soldiers at their fun. I could cheat you...if you gave me half a chance."

Again that chuckle.

The book lay open and his great arms lay across his lap, fingers up.

My father had owned that book. With age it had come unsewed and hung in tatters: the smell of age was there: I rubbed my fingers over pages...

Quickly, he said:

"I like to feel those pages... I wanted to write a book as full of life...give back the thunder of the storm...look how the bugs have eaten the book...see that ripped page...well, where will you keep your Homer?"

And he smiled.

"Shall I read something?"

"Yes...now!"

Turning the pages so he could hear them I searched for a favorite passage.

I read as slowly and as distinctly as possible, allowing each word time.

Cercolas, mother, Aesop, Phaon...gone. When shall I go?

I have been unable to write for days. I have nothing to say...there is only emptiness.

Yesterday a nightingale sang, a song of tattered leaves, scraps of Nile, bits of Euphrates, papyrus against night, against impending doom, against depression. Tender notes whispered insanity. Other notes urged self-pity. Others shattered-with sheerest delicacy-any hope of contrition.

A feather drops...a pause. One could die during such a pause.

All of us wait-life waits!

A bubbling deceives the spirit, a trill alienates the heart.

Something summons the past, other songs on other nights, other songs of other people, the bone flute, of course.

This was not a bird, not a beak, not a feather but sail and spar, rigged to go at dawn, course along many shores.

"Beauty, you're frail. Your bones are able to carry next to nothing and yet your song travels, spreading as if a pebble had dropped on water..."