Bright sunshine on Harris Creek this first Sunday morning in March. The rising has begun. Bulbs buried in Winter's womb have extended a part of themselves, through Mother's dense matter, out into the air and light; a part of the Narcissus remains underground, in the darkness of the womb. The human tragedy of Narcissus, lies in his unconsciousness of that part of his own body that remains unborn. Narcissus takes the part as the whole; pars pro toto.

Narcissus is "a man of letters." It is from the womb of the human voice that Narcissus seeks deliverance; Narcissus mistakes his own voice as the voice of another. Narcissus marks that part of the story in which our hero discovers himself in the mirror.

"He did not know what he was looking at, but was fired by the sight, and excited by the very illusion that deceived his eyes. Poor foolish boy, why vainly grasp at the fleeting image that eludes you? The thing that you are seeing does not exist: only turn aside and you will lose what you love. What you see is but the shadow cast by by your reflection; in itself it is nothing. It comes with you, and lasts while you are there; it will go when you go, if go you can." Ovid, Metamorphoses.

Here is the reader/writer, a reflection in the mirror, someone seen rather than heard or touched. Narcissus appears ghost-like from the left hemisphere of the brain. How to get out of a trap that I keep setting? " . . . it will go when you go, if go you can."