Last night for the first time since you were dead
I walked with you, my brother, in a dream.
We were at home again beside the stream
Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red.
“Don’t touch them: they are poisonous,” I said.
But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam
Of strange, bright laughter flying round your head
And as you stooped I saw the berries gleam.
“Don’t you remember? We called them Dead Man’s Bread!”
I woke and heard the wind moan and the roar
Of the dark water tumbling on the shore.
Where--where is the path of my dream for my eager feet?
By the remembered stream my brother stands
Waiting for me with berries in his hands ...
“These are my body. Sister, take and eat.”
Our brother Clarence goes to school.
He has a slate and a blue school-bag.
He has a book and a copybook
And a scholar's companion and a little slate rag.
He knows a boy named Joe B. Kirk,
And he learns about c-a-t cat,
And how to play one-two-sky-blue,
And how to make a football out of a hat.
We climb up on the fence and gate
And watch until he's small and dim,
Far up the street, and he looks back
To see if we keep on watching him.
Our brother says that Will was born
The very day that Dickie came;
When one is four the other is,
And all their birthdays are the same.
Their coats and waists are just alike;
They have their hats together, too.
They sleep together in one bed,
And Will can put on Dickie's shoe.
But they are not the same at all;
Two different boys they have to be,
For Dick can play in Mother's room
When Will is climbing in a tree.
Or maybe Will is on the porch
To cry because he stubbed his toe,
And Dick is laughing by the gate
And watching ants go in a row.
They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power.
But they, my brothers, were eaten up
In the fury of the flesh, which I had not,
Made pulp in the activity of the senses, which I had not,
Hardened by the growth of the lusts, which I had not,
Though making names and riches for themselves.
Then I, the weak one, the simpleton,
Resting in a little corner of life,
Saw a vision, and through me many saw the vision,
Not knowing it was through me.
Thus a tree sprang
From me, a mustard seed.
Brother, I am fire
Surging under the ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother —
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you —
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Michael, come in! Stop crying at the door.
Come in and see the evil you have done.
Here is your sister's doll with one leg gone,
Naked and helpless on the playroom floor.
"Poor child ! poor child ! now he can never stand.
With one leg less he could not even sit!"
She mourned, but first, with swift avenging hand,
She smote, and I am proud of her for it.
Michael, my sympathies are all for you.
Your cherub mouth, your miserable eyes.
Your grey-blue smock tear-spattered and your cries
Shatter my heart, but "what am I to do"?
He was her baby and the fear of bears
Lay heavy on him so he could not sleep
But in the crook of her dear arm, she swears.
So, Michael, she was right and you must weep.