Thereafter Johnnie

NOW she is a light flitting through the halls of the Old Carnegie Library. They closed it down, then gave it to the University of the District of Columbia. They stopped having classes there. The black folk left, went up into the Allegheny Mountains when the war started. She gets brighter as evening comes on.

Now she is a light brightening out of nothing in the Children’s Room of the Old Carnegie Library, out of nothing, because to a light there is no need for a way of getting there, through the front door, or through a window, or up from the basement stairs smelling of urine on days when the mild vagrants sat in the park. Down there damp they urinated against stone and cement. The door is locked. No one comes this way.

Now she is a light, Johnnie, henceforth and forever a light who walked and grieved the holy city alone now a light in the Old Carnegie Library, writhing in the Children’s Room, on the second floor, a wincing aching gyre of light that whirlpools nothing into itself, there is only light in the light, only light. She moves out of the Children’s Room into the hallway, leans first to her right beside the high display cabinets, then ahead a step upon the marble floor touches the doorposts of the room on the other side quickly, and then waiting, keeping there, a pillar of light beckoning, beaconing to no one, a light hesitating above the doorsill of the Science and Technology Room, no, not there, this is not the place, she whispers to herself, my mother never sat in this room, she glances away, she returns again to the Children’s Room, curves the separating wall to the Young Adult Room ... she fidgets with the tabletops, a light. Johnnie.

Now she is a light, after all she endured to know, a castaway light waiting again at the door of the Children’s Room, yearning, watching, hesitating before descending, she fumbles with the vanished books that fall from her handlessness.

Mary Cary

Eight Cousins

An Old-Fashioned Girl

Curious George

Pollyanna

Touches but cannot hold. Grieves. Turns. Children’s Room. Young Adult Room. My mother is not here. Nor here. Whispering light she descends.

Descend. Descend dear Johnnie, light-years away from us now groping against the carved marble posts between the floor and the top edge of the bannister, sliding to touch the wall beside the window. Down. Johnnie, descend.

Where are the young voices murmuring over thick pages when my mother was a child here reading at these tables? A voice of light whispering, which is no voice at all, only light. She steps into the hallway and to the marble stairway. Evening comes darker. Down the stairs, past the first floor to the basement, where once there were art pictures stored in a crowded room. To the left the Music Room, empty now, she huddles her helpless brightness close against the absent tables, Johnnie, hopelessly bright where she sits in absent chairs with earphones that have passed away and listens, a listening yearning light,

o yes now this little light of mine

Alone. Completely.

I’m gonna let it shine

A flickering light trembling flitting in the Old Carnegie Library at Seventh and K streets, Northwest, Washington, D.C. Washington City.

This little light of mine

Johnnie.

I’m gonna let it shine

Whispering through earphones in the basement in the Music Room, she hears the voices of the choirs of Third Baptist Church.

This little light of mine