His love endures for ever. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. At the end of his life David was cold. He could no longer dream even of what he once lived, the superlative athlete, supple beyond imagination, able to lead a troop, to be a fugitive fifteen years, sleep on the ground, fast for days, endure privation, why now he cannot even get warm. He lays in his bed and shivers, surrounded by all his useless props of kingdom, the court, the trappings. He lies in his bed with his memories with only his memories and when he opens his eyes, no he is not yet in the house of the Lord forever, he is in a tent, or a house, a palace, but I think a tent, with a flag waving from the top, like a Bedouin. He is surrounded by sweets and sumptuous foods he cannot eat, by lords and courtiers he can't stand. For what is the great leveler of life but age?
He cannot get warm so they bring him a virgin, a girl to warm him. She lays beside the king in the night, beside the king and his memories of Absalom and Goliath, of Saul and what David was, of the air and his men and the women. But he is freezing. She feels the bones in their sockets, the femur long and emaciated and her compassion flows around it. She feels the wasted muscle of his arms, lengthened and all sinew now, and her compassion flows around it. She feels his cold feet and hands and her ardor warms it. Did she not love the king, the man, the old man, how could she stand it? Now and then he goes to sleep in her arms and she feels warmed by it, as if some purpose is fulfilled. She has brought the king rest, for a moment, but then he stirs, his dreams are light as his sleep. He is thinking of Absalom again. She doesn't dare to soothe him but her heart overflows with tenderness. She is his nurse. She is his blanket. She is his pillow. She is his last stronghold of the warmth of life. The lights are out in the tent. The hangers on have gone. Perhaps a guard stands outside. They respect the king's privacy. But the girl in his bed loves him. What kind of love is it? Not for a father or a brother or a husband, more for a friend, a patient, one you sing to and hold their hand while they finally go where no man, at least not ourselves, has gone before. Whether or not you go gently in night, do not go alone is the wisdom of the home. But the touch of the hand, the arm, the presence beside the bed in a chair, they are like the arms of the everlasting, the warmth of the fellowship of God, the God who befriends David and the girl in the bed, his fingers aching, his digestion unsettling, gaps between his teeth, his eyes dry, and these are the good days. We don't like to think of him coughing, or demented, or out of breath, or moaning, thankfully there has been no moaning. He is stoic, disoriented but stoic. Which is heroic. And the attitude of the girl is his comfort. Not to prolong his life or shorten (which of those is a blessing?), but to comfort, to reassure, to help, to guide.
What nurse gets in bed with a patient? This is more. As though one could with the rose of love embrace the heart being of the soul to comfort and embrace. All these necronauts who boast they make the ride in Charon's boat and cross and recross, invoking Dante and what not. Are they 40, 50, 60, 70, in the fullness of their flesh after a full meal and wine and lovemaking and satiation and long sleep? It is their youth that goes the boat, but David lies there with none of it, just a girl for his boatman, just the pale moon cradle of his flesh as his boat. How his hair is long and thin. Cheeks hang upon the bough of a face, white, like snow. You think his mind is diminished but he sees with a clarity that would frighten them all. He sees beyond the bone and into the light. How do we know? From hanging around all night. What amazement when May and December, January behold each another in a glass of themselves. Simple amazement. The water, the sea they cross, she holds tight to him in these night fits. Her female heart reaches. She wishes two of her, one for either side to warm the king. King, you call this a king and bone shop. You would think that having done all this so many times before there would be a famous ancestral memory of death as there is of birth and life, that there would be currency in folk wishdom instead of silence of the bone. Instead you must be one yourself to initiate into the mystery of death, where the old ladies in the home, all the men having gone before, whisper to one another that they know how to do, and they boast of it too, and do, but we never quite find out what it was they knew, that is until we lay there shivering with the long bones and flesh melting from our minds as quickly as it it can. That leaves us but she doesn't leave him. She has been at his side thousands of years
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