[ Harold doesn't comment on either where John retrieved it from or the condition of the paper. He hadn't thought about what John did with it, but if pressed, he could've assumed it would've been treated respectfully, if for no reason than Harold did things like this vanishingly rarely. That he has now is testament to his decision to stop being a coward, more than anything else.
He pushes his breakfast to the side on the table and lays the note flat before him, taking a pen out of his inner jacket pocket, capped so as not to seep ink onto the cloth. He looks down, reading the poem through a few times more, and then starts to write, adding an annotation off to the side. He's never liked underlining or writing directly next to the text; he wants it to stand alone in case John wants to read it without Harold's version coloring it.
When he's done he slides it across the table to John. ]
I lack the poeticism of Rilke, of course, but if you wanted my interpretation...
[ Because he thinks if he's not going to be a coward, he might need to do more than inch out of his comfort zone. John deserves to know what he really feels, and this is an easier way to do it than talking. A more committed one, too -- the solidity of the paper, a concrete object that he can take and review whenever he needs the reminder. ]
I don't know what's coming next for us, but it's still my intent that we face it together. H
Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape and the little churchyard with its lamenting names and the terrible reticent gorge in which the others end: again and again the two of us walk out together under the ancient trees, lay ourselves down again and again among the flowers, and look up into the sky. Rilke
We know that it will end in tragedy that those we love will die, some without even a grave to mark them, but we keep trying anyway, over and over choosing to see beauty and submit to love together.
no subject
He pushes his breakfast to the side on the table and lays the note flat before him, taking a pen out of his inner jacket pocket, capped so as not to seep ink onto the cloth. He looks down, reading the poem through a few times more, and then starts to write, adding an annotation off to the side. He's never liked underlining or writing directly next to the text; he wants it to stand alone in case John wants to read it without Harold's version coloring it.
When he's done he slides it across the table to John. ]
I lack the poeticism of Rilke, of course, but if you wanted my interpretation...
[ Because he thinks if he's not going to be a coward, he might need to do more than inch out of his comfort zone. John deserves to know what he really feels, and this is an easier way to do it than talking. A more committed one, too -- the solidity of the paper, a concrete object that he can take and review whenever he needs the reminder. ]
but it's still my intent that we face it together.
H
and the little churchyard with its lamenting names
and the terrible reticent gorge in which the others
end: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lay ourselves down again and again
among the flowers, and look up into the sky.
Rilke
that those we love will die,
some without even
a grave to mark them,
but we keep trying anyway,
over and over
choosing to see beauty and submit
to love together.