Coming Down Was The Hardest Part Of

Now Hoppin'-john Was F. Jasmine's Very Favorite Food. She Had Always Warned Them To Wave A Plate Of Rice And Peas Before Her Nose When She Was In Her Coffin, To Make Certain There Was No Mistake; For If A Breath Of Life Was Left In Her, She Would Sit Up And Eat, But If She Smelled The Hopping-john, And Did Not Stir, Then They Could Just Nail Down The Coffin And Be Certain She Was Truly Dead.

I Have More To Say Than Hemingway, And God Knows, I Say It Better Than Faulkner.

The Music Left Only This Bad Hurt In Her, And A Blankness. She Could Not Remember Any Of The Symphony, Not Even The Last Few Notes. She Tried To Remember, But No Sound At All Came To Her. Now That It Was Over There Was Only Her Heart Like A Rabbit And This Terrible Hurt.

Coming Down Was The Hardest Part Of Any Climbing.

Day And Night She Had Drudged And Struggled And Thrown Her Soul Into Her Work, And There Was Not Much Of Her Left Over For Anything Else. Being Human, She Suffered From This Lack And Did What She Could To Make Up For It. If She Passed The Evening Bent Over A Table In The Library And Later Declared That She Had Spent That Time Playing Cards, It Was As Though She Had Managed To Do Both Those Things. Through The Lies, She Lived Vicariously. The Lies Doubled The Little Of Her Existence That Was Left Over From Work And Augmented The Little Rag End Of Her Personal Life.