One Autumn

Pa beat Mule to death in autumn
For copper and gold were the leaves
I remember because it was the fallen leaves
Slippery with morning dew
That made it possible to drag
Mule's carcass over to the old water tower
His back had been brutally beaten
Has suspected a broken spine.
Ah took the long-handled shovel and began digging
My attention being diverted at times from
the business of burial by Mule's cold stare
He was dead and the dead must be buried, everyone knows that
Yet his eyes seemed to beg for mercy as if it were ah
who had beaten the life out of the poor brute and not Pa.

Mah spade upturned darker earth and
Without any other warning,
there upon the blade of mah shovel lay
what looked like the skeleton of a small dog.
Squatting aside the grave and loosing the
rust-coloured earth from the fanning bones
Ah discovered a child's tiny skull.
Next,
A rotting radius and ulna connected to a brittle little hand
By the time ah had exhumed mah brother's earthly remains
Lifting out all his bones intact and
laying them out on a soft floor of fallen
Golden foliage, ah was sobbing noiselessly
My eyes streaming.

Ah buried Mule's carcass and
Laid mah brother's skeleton out in an old cutlery drawer
ah found on the heap. Ah built a simple sliding lid for it
And taking the box with me into the swampland,
I propped it against the inside back wall of mah sanctum.
He remained there
My treasured companion
For a good three months
That is
Until the day that she spooked the Turk's nag into the
swamp and the townsfolk found my haven and destroyed it
But that all comes later
I love you
Little brother!
And I'm coming home!