by Wayne and Darcy Thomas

Pale skin stretched
taut over fine white
bones
grimy fingers
pull from threadbare
linen sack
a moldy chunk of black bread.
Bit by bit
he pulls off the green
and hurls it into
icy breakers
rolling off slate gray
sea.

Staring out beyond
the cedar point,
feet planted slightly apart
on limestone overlook,
wishing he couldfollow
the circling gulls,
sees a land
all in his mind
beyond the Lorelei mists
where pain and death and sorrow
never were.
Red leather cap flies off
ample unshorn golden locks
tossing and streaming behind him
as he runs,
runs along the graveyard slopes
of uncounted ancient
mollusks,
runs along the wet and dirty sands
beneath a steel gray sky
flecked with stray splashes of
still cerulean
and darkening cotton puffs
sliding behind the layers
of stormy stratus,
and the rising chill
stings his ears
and cheeks
and numbs his toes
and fingers.
And the saltbush climbs
the barren heights
and wind whips through
the leafless scrub.

He stops for a moment,
stops to stare beyond the point;
a dark green schooner,
two master,
heels far over,
nearly beyond the limit,
then staggers erect,
luffing, then catches the wind,
dirty sails spread
like eagle's wings,
and he shouts for joy.

Hands stuffed down the front
of patched too often trousers,
his head to the ground again,
he tramps along
a moss-grown trail
to the dusty roadway...
god spare the farmer and
his loaded wagon
making painful journey
along this twice-damned
set of ruts.
Ah, yes, his errand:
fills two wooden buckets
from the spring
and balances the yoke
upon his shoulders,
still raw from yesterday's
half-recalled exertions,
and slowly trods
the rocky path
winding up the limestone slope.

Stooping through the leather curtain door,
he sets the heavy buckets
on the crudely fashioned counter
by the sink,
fills his heavy mug
and drinks his fill.
No one else having come back home,
he sets a pot of soup
to simmering over the coals,
stretches out on his sleeping plank,
pulls the rough wool blanket
up to his chin,
and resting his unwashed head
on a small sack of feed,
closes his eyes
for a hard-earned
autumn
nap.