Collected Poems

offering as big as an egg.

II

Long ago a man of fury drawn

by doom's insistent call slew

his brother. The land and every deity

screamed revenge: a head for a head

and raised their spear

to smite the town should it

withhold the due. The man

was ready. The elders' council

looked at him and turned

from him to all the orphans doubly

doomed and shook their heads:

the gods are right and just! This man

shall hang but first may he

retrieve the sagging house

of his fathers

and the fine points

of the gods' spears

returned to earth

and he lived for years that man

of death he raised his orphans

he worked his homestead and his farmlands

till evening came and laid him low

with cruel foraging fever. Patient

elders peering through the hut's dim

light darkened more by smoke

of smoldering fire under his bed

steady-eyed at a guilt they had stalked