Fallen Leaves

Mary Cornelia Hartshorne

An Indian Grandmother’s Parable

Many times in my life I have heard the white sages, Who are learned in the knowledge and lore of past ages, Speak of my people with pity, say, “Gone is their hour Of dominion. By the strong wind of progress their power, Like a rose past its brief time of blooming, lies shattered; Like the leaves of the oak tree its people are scattered.” This is the eighty-first autumn since I can remember. Again fall the leaves, born in April and dead by December; Riding the whimsied breeze, zigzagging and whirling, Coming to earth at last and slowly upcurling, Withered and sapless and brown, into discarded fragments, Of what once was life; dry, chattering parchments That crackle and rustle like old women’s laughter When the merciless wind with swift feet coming after Will drive them before him with unsparing lashes ’Til they are crumbled and crushed into forgotten ashes; Crumbled and crushed, and piled deep in the gulches and hollows, Soft bed for the yet softer snow that in winter fast follows But when in the spring the light falling Patter of raindrops persuading, insistently calling, Wakens to life again forces that long months have slumbered, There will come whispering movement, and green things unnumbered Will pierce through the mould with their yellow-green, sun-searching fingers, Fingers—or spear-tips, grown tall, will bud at another year’s breaking, One day when the brooks, manumitted by sunshine, are making Music like gold in the spring of some far generation. And up from the long-withered leaves, from the musty stagnation, Life will climb high to the furthermost leaflets. The bursting of catkins asunder with greed for the sunlight; the thirsting Of twisted brown roots for earth-water; the gradual unfolding Of brilliance and strength in the future, earth’s bosom is holding Today in those scurrying leaves, soon to be crumpled and broken. Let those who have ears hear my word and be still. I have spoken.

The Extra Mile

One of mine, from a long time ago

I scrambled to my feet with frenetic alacrity, raising clouds of red dust in my haste to stand up. For all the world, I must have looked like some uncoordinated, inky octopus. Once erect, l rubbed my ribs where the spear had prodded me and looked, blindingly, at the face of my tormenter. He smiled, somewhat incongruously and disconcertingly, whilst thrusting his battle gear upon me. It was plain to see that I was intended to be a beast of burden for the obligatory mile.

I had been so soundly asleep that I had failed to hear the footfalls of the thirty or so approaching legionaries. I was awoken sharply be the jab in the ribs that this brute had given me. Bastard.

As we set off to re-join the file of marching soldiers there was much laughter from my erstwhile friends at the wayside inn: I could hear one of them order a round of drinks on the strength of having eluded the obligation to go the statutory mile. I didn’t resent their jocularity: I'd have made the very same response had out roles been reversed.

When we caught up with the other legionaries they ware singing. I did not understand the words. No doubt it was one of such songs sung by soldiers the world over. The man whose kit I was carrying had a fair voice - resonant and tuneful. When the song finished he looked me in the eyes and smiled again. I could not refrain from returning his smile, notwithstanding the feelings of disloyalty that this stirred in me.

I tried to look at him without appearing to do so, in case I upset him. (His short sword – the gladius - swung in its belted scabbard. I didn't doubt that he was well versed in its use). He had fine features; more Greek than Roman. He stood a little taller than I and was of athletic build. His eyebrows and the hair on his forearms had been bleached by exposure to the sun. He had stubble on his face, dimples, a strong jaw, jaw, and dazzlingly emerald eyes.

When he smiled, he showed his white, even teeth to best advantage.

I came to think that, for all his otherness, he was like me. I was younger and slightly built, a typical Jewish youth - olive completion, hazel eyes, lithe, supple, a bit stringy. Yet rigorous exercise and training would produce a figure not unlike that of the man striding purposefully beside me.

I was soon conscious of the weight of his battle gear. I had got hold of it with little thought for convenience of carrying. The legionary sensed my discomfort and, to my surprise, quietly but assertively redistributed the load so that it no longer chafed my shoulders. I could smell the sweat on him when he was near me. He took the water-skin from me and drank from it; he offered it to me with a smile on his expressive face. After some hesitation, I nodded and drank from it thirstily.

My young head was now spinning, though not from dehydration. Enmity and a firm grasp of faith seemed to be deserting me. This man was gentile. An oppressor. But I felt myself liking him. If anyone were ever to know, my shame would be made powerfully evident by the bruises that would surely result.

Since the singing had ended the only sounds were the thud of feet meeting the dusty road, the creak of leather, the clank and slap of weaponry, and the patter of perspiration on breastplates. In that silence I could hear the wordless communication that was binding me to this stranger.

When we reached a milestone I made as if to stop and set my burden down.

The young legionary spoke to me in Greek.

‘Walk with me' he said, ‘an extra mile for friendship sake’. I understood well enough the words he spoke; I was young but I was bright and I had some schooling.

The file of soldiers carried on. I watched the acrid clouds of desiccating dust settling to the ground in their wake. We two were alone. The dust of obligation I shook from my own feet.

‘Certainly’, I said, touching his arm and pointing after the others.

We jogged until we caught up with them. The words he spoke I understood immediately; I am still living with their repercussions. We spoke a little after that in a Babel-born tongue of dog-Latin, Greek and disjointed Aramaic. I learned his name, and he mine, and we shared scratchy details of our respective lives.

Looking back, I suppose I sealed my fate by taking that first step beyond the initial milepost. I crossed my own personal Rubicon; a crossing more decisive than that of Exodus. I became a sojourner in trackless wastes. The Mark of Cain furrowed my own brow from then on. Naturally, the legionary perceived none of this. He could not have been expected to be aware of such things. He was unknowing.

Prompted by another of his eloquent smiles, I allayed my inward fears and beamed back at him. Perhaps this man was, more truly, liberator than oppressor? We drew near to Jerusalem and squinted at the city; the afternoon sun made its walls glaringly white, whilst the gilded ornamentation on the Temple blazed like the wrath of God. Well it might.

The road was busier here. People began to stare. Some hostile, some pitying.

I avoided meeting their gaze. When we crested the rise at the Place of the Skull, the legionary took the accoutrements of war from me. He nodded thanks and offered his hand. Emboldened by an inner realisation, I clasped it in friendship, not caring what the onlookers might think. Traditional loyalties put aside, he thumped me playfully on the back and, with great agility, scampered down the slope after his confreres.

I sat down, raising a flurry of dust, watching him depart. I sat there for a long time. There was a gladiatorial contest in my head: milestones versus tombstones; friendship versus fidelity; liberation versus tradition; love versus duty. I felt the thump up of his hand on my back anew, as of nails in wood. The unwitting instigator of this flight receded in to the distance and was lost from sight at the city gate. He had given his name as Justus but, in future years I often thought of him more as Pandora. I have never regretted exchanging the Ark for that seemingly insignificant little box.

Long years later, I witnessed a man, someday near my own age, toiling up that same slope. His crime was to have walked the extra mile. He had spoken of tolerance and respect, forgiveness and peace. He met with none of these things. They snuffed him out.

I am now an old man. In the evening, I sit and gaze as the children play in the market, as the stallholders leave and the shadows lengthen. I am waiting for my own sun to set.

No-one bothers with me much: I have neither family nor good name. Sometimes, though, young men who are not put off by tales of apostasy come quietly, seek out my company, and talk.

I share with each one the same thing:

In life you may choose any direction you wish; it scarcely matters, and you  may travel in it as far as you will. But if you should chance to walk, in that chosen way, the extra mile, it will bring you to but one place - Golgotha.

It is not so terrifying a place as the timid make out. From what happened to me there I recognise it as the place where mundane journeys end and divine adventures begin.

© Damian

Mrs Sisyphus

Carol Ann Duffy

That's him pushing the stone up the hill, the jerk. I call it a stone - it's nearer the size of a kirk. When he first started out, it just used to irk, but now it incenses me, and him, the absolute berk. I could do something vicious to him with a dirk.

Think of the perks, he says. What use is a perk, I shriek, when you haven't the time to pop open a cork or go for so much as a walk in the park? He's a dork. Folk flock from miles around just to gawk. They think it's a quirk, a bit of a lark. A load of old bollocks is nearer the mark. He might as well bark at the moon - that feckin' stone's no sooner up than it's rolling back all the way down.

And what does he say? Mustn't shirk - keen as a hawk, lean as a shark Mustn't shirk!

But I lie alone in the dark, feeling like Noah's wife did when he hammered away at the Ark; like Frau Johann Sebastian Bach. My voice reduced to a squawk, my smile to a twisted smirk; while, up on the deepening murk of the hill, he is giving one hundred per cent and more to his work.