**Notes**  A journey into Dana Scully's thoughts.  This poem is
a response to the t.s. eliot poem "Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock"
which is remarkable in that it encapsulates Mulder's thoughts perfectly. 
If you would like to read the eliot poem, toss an email my way
(Soprano22@aol.com).  If not, then just enjoy this one.

"An Answering Love Song"
Christine K. Rogalski	

And we walk on, you and I
We walk in fields of truth and valleys of lies,
In faith and patience and treasured conviction
And without resolution . . .
We stand and the air between us cries out.
Do I hear the sigh
Or does it echo without resonance,
The sound breathless as it ripples
Against the slopes of this deep October night?
And so, we walk on,
Weaving nimbly our path around
A thousand pitfalls and a thousand honest answers
Which could halt the searing lesions
With a thousand tears.

The old man feeds birds in the park
And says the days are growing dark.

And it has been time, and past time
To crush the walls which stand in brick
Around a soul.
It has been time
To grasp with curious, fumbling fingers
The thread that binds me to you
And you to me
And give a tug to the frayed, dismayed ends
In hopes of tightening the knot
Without it unraveling at our feet.
In my mind, the unanticipated gasp
Of words too simple and profound to grasp.
When did you become this part of me?
When did you become the catalyst
To send me floating and crashing
To the jagged place where I kneel
Breathless, bruised, ailing, aching,
Confused and complete?
And you question, "Are you fine?"
But it is a little death I am living,
A little death.
And being so wounded, I could not have lain
Prostrate; letting your eyes absorb my pain.

The old man feeds birds in the park
And says the days are growing dark.

And it has been time, and past time,
To question the questions which have brought us to
This point, to this place,
Tracking changes, changing tracks
Which the darkness will erase.
I have brushed the chasm of that undiscovered country,
Have seen what would have been,
Had one not betrayed the almighty powers
And, with a cry of torment,
Ripped me back to face and fight the future
On a path of discovery.
And though I have fallen and felt myself a curse,
You have held a hand and touched a face,
And I (being still an unworthy child) have relied.
I have felt a breath and felt I should believe,
I have wanted to believe.

But as if without transgression, time has wandered
Like phantom hands across a body
And life with its poisons damned
Has squeezed with force and emotion is laid bare.
So do I answer, and shall I care?
And do I admit my soul is weeping
As my world is sustained within deep green eyes?
A faith dissected, a heart in shambles,
A word whispers, and it ambles
Toward an answer, toward a question unasked.
How many silent answers have I given!
Without one giving sweet affirmation,
Or then tearing my strength from me by saying,
"It cannot be like this, never like this."

And in time I play almost the fool,
Strive for a fraction of a moment
Assuming that this fragment of a second
Can be brought to fruition.
I tremble as another day fades
Into darkness, into latent fears,
Into a million dissolving echoes in my ears.
And I try to embrace logic and reason,
The friends who have a million times betrayed,
And crumple them into nothingness, and bring down another wall
But fear snakes into my lair
And I am afraid,
Afraid that Time and the World and the Thems of the world
Have taken their toll and barricaded me in solitude.

For I too have heard the sea maidens,
Calling for me to tread with them across the waters,
And for so long I have ignored them . . .

Shall they ignore me now?

And unshed tears will make vision clear,
Unless I were to let them be seen for once.
They will sustain the ebbing sea of distrust
And bring me back when the world has retrieved its sanity.
As we dance, you and I, in tides of trust and doubt,
Till fate crashes in around us, and light blinks out.


end