THE SAVING

Though the sky still was partly light

Over the campsite clearing

Where some men and boys sat eating

Gathered near their fire,

It was full dark in the trees,

With somewhere a night-hunter

Up and out already to pad

Unhurried after a spoor,

Pausing maybe to sniff

At the strange, lifeless aura

Of a dropped knife or a coin

Buried in the spongy duff.

Willful, hungry and impatient,

Nose damp in the sudden chill,

One of the smaller, scrawnier boys

Roasting a chunk of meat

Pulled it half-raw from the coals,

Bolted it whole from the skewer,

And started to choke and strangle—

Gaping his helpless mouth,

Struggling to retch or to swallow

As he gestured, blacking out,

And felt his father lift him

And turning him upside down

Shake him and shake him by the heels,

Like a woman shaking a jar—

And the black world upside down,

The upside-down fire and sky,

Vomited back his life,

And the wet little plug of flesh

Lay under him in the ashes.

Set back on his feet again

In the ring of faces and voices,

He drank the dark air in,

Snuffling and feeling foolish

In the fresh luxury of breath

And the brusque, flattering comfort

Of the communal laughter. Later,

Falling asleep under the stars,

He watched a gray wreath of smoke

Unfurling into the blackness:

And he thought of it as the shape

Of a newborn ghost, the benign

Ghost of his death, that had nearly

Happened: it coiled, as the wind rustled,

And he thought of it as a power,

His luck or his secret name.