There were two of them,
Small, and scurvy.
They wore the same ragged pieces
Of clothing, and toddled about the village,
Hand in hand, with an almost impetuous confidence,
Like a sun flaunting his orange radiance,
Or a full moon, her white glory,
Or a peacock, her blazing feathery pride.
The rumble of their bellies
Could be heard from miles out.
So everyone knew when they passed.
Their throats too croaked ceaselessly
For fluids did no go there often.
But when they were offered food
Or water, they meekly rejected them.
Mother will come, they always said.
The boys said this as often as aid sought them;
With sunken chin held high, frail chest haughtily raised,
Till the villagers became tired of them;
Incensed out of pity, by what seemed to be
The batty and arrogant dreaminess of two lost souls.
And gradually, the boys thinned to bones,
Till no one could say for certain
If their flesh stood on their bones
Or if their bones stood on their flesh..
Then one dying day, as the sun slowly
Swept the day into the arms of twilight;
And the heat grew into a stony cold,
Promising a strange, biting, windy and violent night,
An old woman, the one the villagers called witch,
Limped from her hut, along the scarcely trodden path
To the forgotten orchards in the recesses of the village,
Where the boys would be, settled on the shadowed grasses,
Eating fallen fruits and singing fallen songs.
Mother will come, they told her,
Gnawing at fruits, that even birds thought bad,
And with a blank certainty in their eyes..
Again, she bade them come, enticed them even;
"There will be food, my children,
And drink, and thatch over your heads,
And oh look, the cold rains are coming!"
But no. Mother said will come, they said..
And so she stood, on her three legs,
Gobsmacked, and full of fear for them;
For she knew what they didn't:
That mother had left them a promise
She would not fulfil;
That mother had long joined the long lines
Of souls that sing sorrowful tunes to the waters;
That mother was always with them,
But that mother will not come back.
The rains fell with hate.
The village stirred with fear of the sky;
What mightu fury was this, pouring against us?
The streams began to overrun, the hills burst open
And the waters of a great flood, sped across the village..
But the boys sat there, unmoving,
Telling stories of mother; she will come, she will come;
And even when the flood came to carry them,
NO, they thundered, mother will come..