At that place
there was a honey-eyed
boy
generous with his
smiles
and eager to share
all he had
which was the place
itself
a boulder to scale
and look down from dizzily
a narrow ledge of
slippery rock to dive from
a pool from which
he plucked silvery fish like notes from a harp
The waterfall was
his home
and he did not care
for the distant school
and he would not
care to work in the city
He would stay and
care for the waterfall, as did his elder brother
sweeping fresh the
sand around the plunge pool each morning
But instead
he hung himself
from the ridgepole of his parents' house
because they were
poor
because his father
was ill and his mother crazy
because someone
said he was dirty
but above all
because he was part
of that place
and that place had
somehow turned against him
and he knew no other
place
except the frontier
of suffering he had crossed
from which dismal
land the colors became rebuke
After he died
I looked for some
sign of change
and found none
Not in the green
of forest or fern
Not in the golden
beat of wings or the red of rock
Not in the pastel
wash of water or the silver arc of its fall
But a string of
white
Charmed by chants
was newly hung from
tree to shrub around the house
completing a circle
the unhappy ghost
could never enter
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