(from The River Singing Stone and Almost Home)
The Raftsman Never Looked Back
On TV and the dailies
these rivers of refugees
swell the highways of Rwanda…
In Asia in an earlier war
in still another surge of evacuees
I was that child, bundle on head,
asking if we could stop.
Since dawn we had walked
in lines that staggered
and stretched toward a place
where children could play
and not worry, we were told,
somewhere through forests,
across rivers,
beyond a distant mountain;
fleeing the Japs
we did not see,
whose mortars we heard
along with news of villagers
herded to deep wells;
women ravished
whose breasts they carved out;
babies tossed in the air
then caught on bayonets;
men beheaded, skinned alive.
By the wayside,
huddled on a straw mat
a grandmother waited.
Why was she there?
Would anyone come back?
“Hurry, stay close together,”
Father replied.
The way was slippery, often steep,
then we couldn’t find Brownie
who had wandered off
when our turn came on the raft;
midstream, we saw him
barking from the shore,
paddling after us,
then turning back
where the river ran fast.
Go back! Go back! we cried,
but Father was quiet
like the others on the raft,
and the raftsman never looked back.
Splashed, sprayed,
soaked from tears and
the river rushing green and dark,
we watched the dog race
up and down that other shore.
Who would protect him?
His barking stayed with us
past our hearing.
Sagging with bundles on a pole
across his shoulder,
Father ignored our questions,
winced each time
we asked to rest.
He had to know it would be right,
but still he answered,
“No, we must get there
before the night.”
Now, decades since we walked
from dawn to sunset,
these children once again
balancing bundles on their heads,
eyes dulled by doubts…
Father had reasons
to forget that day,
the bundles we packed,
but still those questions…
How could we get there before the night
when the raftsman never looked back?
ILLUSTRATION: Gustave Dore's Charon for Dante's Inferno
