So, is he dead?
The fists on his chest
Rise and fall-and rise.
The others crouch, listening, looking.
Soon one less to feed in this hard time,
Always dark outside,
Always cold outside.
There will be light again.
(There
will
be the long light?)
He is as still as a corpse
Then sits straight up.
Points-but nothing to see,
Only the glimmer and glide of fire light
On a seam of white crystals in the earth roof.
A young one sees, knows,
Climbs inside the old one's arm,
Laughs with him.
The others see nothing,
Know there is more than they have ever seen.
His face, his old face, old teeth bared
And the child's face say Look,
there.
Look- and
that's it. Gone.
He falls back. He is dead.
The young one sobs.
It
has gone.
They stare at the line of white rubble
Where water drips when the snow thins.
They delay throwing the dead thing out for the wolves
Into snow over earth as hard as stone.
If
he saw it-saw
what?
Laughing and crying,
If
the child saw. . .
But he is lying face down sobbing,
"It
has gone. It's gone."
