W S.MERWIN
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and had a Ii ttl e boy, who at the time the sto ry opens is about ten years old.
Till s is the time of the first real ho rro rs o f leprosy and the attempt
to
get rid
ofl eprosy, not by curing it but by shoving it under the rug and pushing peo–
pl e where they wouldn't be seen . You may have hea rd of Father Damian and
the leprosarium on Moloka 'i. The cowboy is diagnosed by a very ambitious
sheriff and is seen
to
have some o f the signs of leprosy on hi s face and some–
one comes out and says, "You sho uld go to the doctor." If you were
suspected
to
have leprosy and you were Hawaii an, they sent you o ff, and thi s
fam.iJ y had decided not to be separated. They also kn ew that their Ii ttl e boy
had leprosy. So instead o f going to Kalaupapa and being separated they dec id–
ed that they would join a band o f fu g itives in one of the mos t spectacular
vall eys on earth . If you can imagine a part o f the Grand Canyon that's bright
green with waterfalls in it, that would be KaJaJau Vall ey , and that's where
they went, and the sheriff wo rked up fo r himself the responsibili ty
to
go in
and cl ean up the lepers from KaJalau Vall ey. Ko' olau made it cl ear that they
would not go peacefull y and when the sheriff tried to ambush them he shot
the sheriff. He never mi ssed, they say, and they sent the army after him. He
holed up in the cliffs and , as they appeared, he shot them until they gave up
and then he hid somewhere else. So they stayed on. The child di ed. They
buried the child. The husband di ed fin ally. She buried him. She lived on in
the empty vall ey fo r mo nths and then she went back to where she had
grown up, and her life afterwards, but the part that I'm going to read is about
her going back into the vall ey. She hears a rumor that Ko' olau's grave has
been dug up and that hi s bones and guns are being sold for souvenirs and she
goes back to find out. Thi s is part o f that trip.
She was sure now as she li fte d th e tangle o f branches
guava and th en' oh ia and kopi ko remembering
Kawalun a looking at her steadily eac h time
and th en shaking her head and say ing-You know th at nobody
has found him-and yet Pi ' ilani had come each time
to see w hat she kn ew th e Ii tter of moss and bri ttl e tw igs
undi sturbed th e russet fur along th e fe rn fi·onds
untouched th e sunlight n oa tin g on patches beyo nd
reach she saw it all in her mind as she came up
between th e roc ks and th ere was no pa th th ere were no
footprints o r broken shoots an d th en th e holl ow in th e crag
and th e corn er into it an d she saw the place before her
almos t as she had see n it in her min d only
a Ii ttl e changed in itself a Iittle estranged
giving
ofT
no sign th at it knew she was stand ing there
th e shadows whisper ing among themselves the
c1iff~
