By Will Kirkland, 1980

Passing them
–our car, their cart–
it seemed as if
the hind legs of the horse
had broken
out of sorrow, or in fear.

They raised their hands
we saw two shapes
not yet a wave
or greeting;
not even supplication;
two thin, black sleeved
reeds holding up
a tent of grief.

At the edge
of orange tree blossom,
the burning smoke of Spanish winter,
we stopped and waited.

They explained
the object that they carried
was not a rolled up mat,
but was their son,
encircled by some cane
just cut, he seemed a log,
ten years and green.

Would we take them?
faster?

The horse would find his way
to home or die.
It’s all the same, he said,
passing her the mat
and getting in
to be passed
the cane, head first, and
she got in and put the feet
beneath her hands. Charcoal black,
two tears
trembling on the cane.

Life had made them
after the first brief fire
continual ash.

It’s only the last, he said.
She said nothing, turning
to look at the horse, thinking
perhaps: that one is living
this other one’s dead.

We entered their silence.
They entered the boy’s
in the back seat
with the odor of fields,
the lime of damp walls,
the rustling reeds.

There was nowhere a voice could go
however we wished;
they looking out to opposite sides;
anywhere but down the road –
into the caravan, unseen
but known,
their own and others
hearses and wheels
humankind’s history
of being, has been and was.

As from the first
they were still in dispute:
to weigh him down
with stones and prayers
or let him go. The price
of gas decided. We stopped
behind a beach and buried him
beneath the tide. She didn’t know
but let him go when the stones
went rolling, rolling
out of the water’s way.

Goodbye my son
she said and turned.
And, Come, Old man.
We’ve still a long way home.

Will Kirkland
1980

I recently found this in an old magazine. I’d forgotten I had written it, and so re-present it for my own eyes as well as any others that might see.