Idumea, edits

idumea/content/005.tex

@@ -76,7 +76,32 @@ She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
 
 ``We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading \emph{is.} She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:
 
-\{\{\% verse \%\}\} Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta. Fingers ferry food --- fish, perhaps --- finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be. At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them? One could never guess. We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps, that the room is tastefully furnished, the coffin silver, the bar, open, quite good, and none of them are drunk yet, or at least none look it. ``Good man, good man,'' they mutter, doing all they can to convince each other through well-rehearsed performances, that this must be the case. The silently bereaved already sit graveside.'' \{\{\% /verse \%\}\}
+\begin{verse}
+Too many suits move in too many lines.\\
+They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,\\
+hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta.\\
+Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding\\
+slack-jawed mouths already open,\\
+squawking at wayward children\\
+or bemoaning The Market,\\
+whatever that may be.\\
+At some point, who cares how long ago,\\
+death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.\\
+Who knows how well they knew him,\\
+their backs turned, studiously\\
+deciding that he is no longer of them?\\
+One could never guess.\\
+We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,\\
+that the room is tastefully furnished,\\
+the coffin silver, the bar, open,\\
+quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,\\
+or at least none look it.\\
+"Good man, good man," they mutter,\\
+doing all they can to convince each other\\
+through well-rehearsed performances,\\
+that this must be the case.\\
+The silently bereaved already sit graveside."
+\end{verse}
 
 I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. ``There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?''