L2-5-3

She was very shy, and her face became pink with embarrassment.

It is better to sit here by the fire, she whispered,

and be happy even if nobody thinks of us.

Her father stared into the fire.

I think there is something natural in what the young man says.

And his words have made me think about our lives here.

It would have been nice if we had had a little farm down in the valley.

Some place where we could see our mountains without being afraid,

they would fall on our heads.

I would have been respected by all our neighbors.

And when I had grown old, I would die happy in my bed.

You would put a stone over my grave so everyone would know I lived an honest life.

You see, the young man cried out?

It is in our nature to want a monument.

Some want only a stone on their grave.

Others want to be a part of everyone's memory.

But we all want to be remembered after we die.

The young man threw some more wood on the fire to chase away the darkness.

The fire light fell on the little group around the fireplace.

The father's strong arms and the mother's gentle smile.

It touched the young man's proud face and the daughter's shy one.

It warmed the old grandmother, still knitting in the corner.

She looked up from her knitting and with her fingers still moving the needles she said,

old people have their secrets just as young people do.

The old woman said she had made her funeral clothes some years earlier.

They were the finest clothes she had made since her wedding dress.

She said her secret was a fear that she would not be buried in her best clothes.

The young man stared into the fire.

Old and young he said, we dream of graves and monuments.

I wonder how sailors feel when their ship is sinking,

and they know they will be buried in the wide and nameless grave that is the ocean,

a sound rising like the roar of the ocean shook the house.

Young and old exchanged one wild look.

Then the same words burst from all their lips, the slide, the slide.