V. WILL YOU HEAR ME? Will you hear me across the miles, over these distances? There is an ocean between us and still I dream of you, entreat my words to try and reach you. I close my eyes and see you: it is springtime and you are walking along the narrow streets of Prague, hurrying over the cobblestones. I ask my words to greet you, to be the perfect stranger I was once, who you then welcomed into your life and, after a time, into your bed. Will you hear me if I stand on the green mountain of poetry and whisper your name to the wind? I've tried shouting, I've tried singing, and my words have returned to me like broken rainbows. I long for you, Isabella, I long for you. I entreat my words to tell you how I feel, to greet you as courtiers sent from a distant land to another distant land, and I instruct them to wait for any slim message you may then desire to send.