A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle

Author:Madeleine L'Engle [L'Engle, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Young Adult, Childrens, Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9780440910817
Publisher: Square Fish
Published: 1979-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

I woke up early the next morning, with the summer sun pouring across my bed and my eyes. I looked at my watch. Not yet six. Nobody'd be stirring for another hour.

I pulled my writing things from under the bed, dressed, and slipped quietly down the ladder.

The house was silent. No sound from the big four-poster bed where my parents were sleeping. No sound from the hospital bed in Grandfather's study. If he was awake he would be either reading or meditating.

Rochester rose from his battered red rug at the foot of the ladder, stretched, and followed me. Sunlight streamed across the kitchen. I wanted to write something for Ynid. I stared across the porch to the blinding early-morning light bursting across the sea. A sonnet. A sonnet for Ynid and her baby.

Ynid couldn't read. But Jeb Nutteley could, and Adam, if I wrote something I dared give them.

I stopped thinking about Dr. Nutteley and Adam and focused on the poem. It came swiftly, with lots of quick crossings-out, as new words, new lines pushed aside what I had first written down.

The earth will never be the same again.

Rock, water, tree, iron, share this grief

As distant stars participate in pain.

A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf,

A dolphin death, O this particular loss

Is Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried,

If this small one was tossed away as dross,

The very galaxies then would have lied.

How shall we sing our love's song now

In this strange land where all are born to die?

Each tree and leaf and star show how

The universe is part of this one cry,

That every life is noted and is cherished,

And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.

Did I believe that? I didn't know, but I had not, as it were, dictated the words, I had simply followed them where they wanted to lead.

And whether or not it was a passable sonnet I didn't know, nor whether or not I'd presume to show it to Dr. Nutteley or Adam.

But I felt the good kind of emptiness that comes when I've finished writing something. The emptiness quickly translated itself into plain, ordinary hunger.

"I'd just put a saucepan of milk on the stove to warm when the phone rang.

"Vicky, I'm glad it's you. This is Adam."

"Yes. Hi!"

"1 hope I didn't wake anybody. Listen, can you come over this morning first thing?" His voice sounded eager. "I want to try something new in my dolphin experiment, and I need you."

"Sure I'll come." I didn't even tiy to keep the rush of gladness out of my voice.

"Can you come right now? I mean, don't wait for John. Have you had breakfast?"

"Not yet."

"How about meeting me at the cafeteria and we'll ' have coffee and an English or something while I clue you in to what I hope to do this morning."

"Okay. Be there as sobn as my bike'U get me there." I turned off the heat under my milk and left a note: "Hope somebody wants cafe au lait. I'm off to the lab. See you when.

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