Penelope and Ulysses Read Online Free Page A

felt that I would drown
    because I swam in the unmapped
    and uncharted waters.
    PENELOPE: I told you: in these waters
    they do not throw nets.
    You told me there are other dangers.
    BOTH: The sea can seduce you and keep you.
    PENELOPE: The sea has kept you from me.
    Who can convince the sea to be reasonable?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: We are like the bird and fish
    that have fallen in love.
    But where do we live?
    In the sky? In the sea?
    PENELOPE: Who would want to tame
    the passion and desire
    of the forever making and breaking sea?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I came from behind the sea,
    and now where do I go
    when it cuts me off?
    PENELOPE: Do I want you to stay?
    I can see you, smell you, sense you,
    but something is preventing me
    from touching you.
    BOTH: We cannot touch,
    I long for your touch. [ They touch their breasts. ]
    PENELOPE: We cannot touch
    because we both are suspended . . .
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Above or below our life together . . .
    PENELOPE: But we cannot thread our lives
    into the eye of time,
    into the eye of the needle . . .
    BOTH: That pierces the heart . . .
    PENELOPE: And heat of the moment.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: I know a lot about threads
    and how far they stretch
    and what happens
    when they break and disappear.
    PENELOPE: Sometimes you have to undo the tapestry
    and start again.
    But it is never the same.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Something has changed.
    PENELOPE: Something is missing.
    BOTH: Something is longing.
    PENELOPE: What is missing is only the golden threads
    that hook themselves into the human heart
    and pull upon the other,
    to an anchored and shared
    destination.
    It is only those threads that I weave
    and spin in my arrivals and departures.
    They lodge themselves in the heart.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: In this pulling and tension
    between what connects and separates us,
    the golden thread that will not break
    always pulls the anchor in my heart.
    PENELOPE: We are both suspended
    upon the invisible thread of a time
    that does not meet the heat of the physical.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: We are suspended like stars.
    We watch the light of the other
    but we cannot feed from each other’s heat.
    Who are the philosophers who say
    that the physical does not matter?
    PENELOPE: I feel everything
    through the longing of my body,
    the longing of my deep rebellion.
    BOTH: I am from another world, another time
    that has burned into the fragility
    of the passing moment,
    the moment that has become my eternity.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: For I am meant to live
    from the moments I have had with you
    for the rest of my life,
    beyond and further
    than any trained navigator can go.
    PENELOPE: Ulysses, you have shipwrecked me
    on an island surrounded by men
    whom I must seduce
    so that I can remain devoted
    and faithful to you,
    so that I keep you alive in me.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: How do you seduce a man?
    PENELOPE: Through sexual favours?
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Through food and comfort?
    BOTH: That is not seduction,
    only a temporary need gratification
    that one can get with anyone,
    at any time.
    PENELOPE: Seduction of all the senses.
    I know the secrets of the sirens.
    I know how to keep men
    burning and longing.
    I am from the hidden,
    the unknown, the untouched.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: For ten years they have lived outside me.
    For ten long years they seek
    my favours and choice
    of one of them.
    At any time they could have and can,
    conquer, and steal what is not theirs.
    Instead they wait for the prize.
    PENELOPE: To taste and eat
    from the seed of the seductress
    who is both a bird and a fish.
    YOUNG PENELOPE: Aren’t you glad that I learned to swim
    in uncharted and unmapped waters
    so that I can live
    on this suspension of time, in longing?
    Aren’t you glad that I swim
    in uncharted and unmapped waters,
    the darkest turbulence of my heart,
    so that I can learn the secrets of seduction
    that keep me in love and others desiring me?
    PENELOPE: Like you, Ulysses, I am a navigator
    and influence the burning of my vessel
    so that you may see me,
    but others can