Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stack- still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now.
CALCUTTA: A beggar, half-conscious, is lying on a mat in a home for the dying. A nun is kneeling by his side, her delicate fingers wiping his forehead with a washcloth. She is a peasant whose eyes shine like the wings of a heron flying around the sun, a silence whose light soars through the darkness.
How can I describe the beggar's eyes as he summons all his strength to motion her to draw close? She obeys.
It takes the beggar a long time to whisper something in her ears: "I have lived . . . like an animal. Now I will die . . . like an angel." The beggar's final words.