The others, crouching, squatting, lying,
Torpid with the long cold.
Are awake and listen.
The words they use are Come, Go, Run, Danger,
Fetch wood, Skin the Deer. Not much more.
The old she is saying, her voice like the sob of the wind,
"We shall go and pick the yellow fruit,
We shall catch fish . .. "
And then the great thing happens.
"Remember" says, or sobs, or sings the old she,
"Remember how we went into the forest,
Do you remember, Little Cub,
We all went together into the forest,
We picked the yellow fruit,
Remember, do you remember?"
What is this
remember?
No one before has said, Do you remember?
Yet remember they do, from long light to light,
Long dark to dark, know there have been hungers and plenty,
And now there is this word for what has been.
"Do you remember, child, in the last long light,
You were small then .... "
The fevered eyes are open .
Does she remember? Does she smile?
On the mother goes while the wind cries,
And then, worn into sleep, she is silent.
The others speak for her.
"Do you remember, Little Cub, how we all went into the forest ... "
And so they chanted.
When the old she woke she heard her own words,
New words, that had come from her grief,
Being said again, or sung,
Her pain their pain.
