Nine
This is what she said:
A golden beam of slim, flexible—but infinitely strong—light stretches into the distance. At numerous intervals along the shining beam, little leaves, dry and curled up, adhere to it. Suddenly, something makes one leaf quiver and then unfurl. And in the leaf’s opening can be glimpsed a moment of our life. And then it curls up again, drier than before, and soon drops off the beam, falling down to the ground of Earth’s being where it becomes dust and is absorbed without trace. Another leaf on the beam, another unfurling and re-furling and falling and going to dust in the great ground. And then another, and another. The leaves are like our life experiences, momentarily exquisite but barely visible to our memory as we streak onward, shining.
9 August 1973
It was
