“In Time of Plague” by Stephen Lefebure

There was a winter when it seemed the Pest

Turned every man into a skeleton. 

Too hard for the point of any harrow,

Earth refused to open and ingest

The corpses, lest She be overrun.

Pointing there from crossroads in the snow —

Do those bones ask whether east or west

Or some other way is their direction?

Draped across our fences, do they know

That a barrier prevents their rest?  

On some farms the plague had not begun —

Their plan was to spend that summer fallow. 

On one grange like that a man so strong

He plowed his rows without an ox or mare

Saw his wife and children die.  Swelled

Until their buboes burst.  All along

Had they been like that inside?  He took their

Bodies out like logs before they smelled. 

Interred them near the millet seed.  No song

Or word.  Buried them beside the bear

He slew when she refused to be expelled. 

Went back in where he could not belong

Any longer.  Could not fit his chair. 

Packed his gear as if he were compelled.  

Taking just a flint, a change of clothes, 

A knife for food, his boots, his handmade  

Bow, he strode alone into the wood. 

After many forks the route he chose

Struck a river much too high to wade

For most men, and for a time he stood.  

We may hide our grief.  For some it shows

In subtle behaviors, in displayed

Tics an untaught stranger never would

Perceive as heartbreak.  For some others, throes

Of reveries make memories cascade

Until every loss is understood. 

Hoping that this ford could be his mission,

He broke off a bough to be his staff

And tied with thongs his deerskin jersey tight

Against the current.  In contrition

For his sins, and mainly on behalf

Of his wife and children, like a knight

Knelt and so remained in that condition,

Motionless, the while the moon rose half

Its arc into an almost windless night.  

Then he built a fire, his ambition

Spoken, to become their epitaph

Helping travelers reach home all right. 

To each bank they came.  They saw his fire,

Called, and though he slept, they saw him rise,

Grasp his mighty stave, and so immerse

Himself until the water, ever higher,

Doused his seven feet up to his eyes.  

Then, should they turn back?  Would it be worse

To ride this giant’s back?  But they admire

As he nears and they perceive his size,

His red hair and beard.  Has he a curse

Forcing him to help?  Does it require 

That he lift each traveler lengthwise?

Each is the entire universe.  

Now each pilgrim wants to be selected

First, as if his strength will fail at last.

He transports one man to guard the far

Shore, and then a mother is collected.

Two small children carefully are cast

On the farther bank.  As if they are

Gaining weight with every step directed,

Everyone feels heavier when passed

To the beachhead, and as if hot tar

Lined the riverbed, each stride’s expected

Strength asks more, and more amassed

Effort.  As the helpmeet avatar,

He places the last, to their affected

Thanks, upon his side.  The great outcast

Goes back to his spot from where they are. 

Years pass in this way.  Although his red

Hair turns gray, his power never fails, 

And other than his hair he does not age. 

His Book of the Hours prayers are always said

For his wife and children, and new trails

Blaze across the forest to this stage

Now marked on all maps, the way ahead

Known to be safe here, with no details. 

Trying to serve God, he learns to gauge

His arms and legs against the watershed.

Famous now in songs and many tales, 

The giant-striding bearer earns no wage. 

Then a night whose wind dissects the sky

So that no one knows what they have heard —

The giant stirs.  “Was that a distant child?

No.  A bear has killed its deer.  The cry

Of a deer at death is like the word 

Of a human youth exclaiming, wild.”

He tries to sleep, but fear can magnify

Possibilities.   “If that occurred....

There he is again.”  The giant smiled

At his familiar purpose.  “What can die

Twice?”  He strode as if the Earth deferred

To his step.  A boy, as if exiled.  

He breasted like a boat the rushing flood

To that child of ten, well dressed, alone

By starlight in a draught half full of rain.

Kneeling to that boy, awash in crud, 

He began to grasp him, he the grown

Man, but whom he grasped began to gain 

Size, and both were cleansed of all their mud.

The boy then touched the giant, and they shone

With a light their skin could not contain. 

Striding back, or floating, now their blood

Rose above the waters.  See, his prone

Body lying still on the terrain. 

Leaving loss behind, lest it recur,

He would not let sadness grow, to warn

Joy, and so become a mere despairer.

Was this then the life of Christopher

The Bearer, who at last himself was borne

Across that water threatening the farer?

Praying for his family that were

Taken suddenly, he chose to mourn

By protecting others from all terror.  

Do we each have grief that we defer

To another time, or we have torn

Out, as if all sadness were an error? 

Those of us we lose — what happens to them?

Grandfathers and mothers, special friends —

Did we love them well enough to show them?

Cannot visit, cannot even view them 

Afterwards, so sorrow never ends.  

Were their deaths then meaningless?  We know them

As one knows a ghost, by passing through them.

When a place we shared with them extends

Feelings, we have to undergo them.

Grief which has no stages.  Life which slew them 

Gestures like a mime — silence transcends

Sound, because each breath is what we owe them.

What do we remember but the way

Someone laughed or tossed about asleep?

When we lose a loved one what can we

Do but stammer with no words to say

Adequate for loss, a loss so deep?

When someone we love is lost we see

What they left behind, collections they

Had containing things they liked to keep. 

Such things bother us — the raw debris

We may wish to smash or throw away.

They are nothing to us now but cheap

Reminders of the nothing we will be. 

Flowing near the wellspring of our spirit,

Grief may be too strong to regulate. 

Sadness does not want us to diffuse it. 

People comfort us — we cannot hear it. 

Trying to articulate, we translate

Meaning to expression — thereby lose it. 

Language — greatest art may bring us near it. 

Poetry and melody of great

Power, such that no one can refuse it,

Visual art — people revere it

For its silence — tell us to create

Being out of world, and how to use it. 

If some path persuades you through a mist

To a rush of water, and you stand

Frigid, will some helper by that river

Hold his hand out to you to assist

Crossing to the bank without a strand?

Was it a vocation, to deliver

All who are afraid?  And to enlist

Any who accepted its demand?

Then another can become caregiver.

One like Christopher may still exist

Transporting thin wraiths into the land

Where the coldest bones no longer shiver. 

Of the seasons, Autumn most implied us. 

Every landscape visible was made

From our inner lives, deeply internal.

Decomposing skeletons deride us

For our sentience, seem to persuade

Through their postures that we are nocturnal.

Tibias and skulls identified us 

As the currency the world was paid

To let winter change into the vernal. 

Wind is like our languages outside us.

If a prayer, one no one could have prayed 

With a mortal voice to the Eternal. 

About Stephen Lefebure
He/Him/His

Poetry by Stephen Lefebure may be found in his own volume, Rocks Full of Sky, and in Wild Song — Poems of the Natural World and Going Down Grand: Poems from the Canyon, two anthologies of nature poetry. His work may also be found in journals such as Wilderness, Chicago Studies, Bombay Review, and Bangalore Review. He lives in Evergreen, Colorado, USA.