POSTSCRIPT
Postscript
AN EMBER ETCHING
An old man sat before his great log fire
And gazed dreamily into the dying blaze.
His eyes were red as though with weeping.
The long, thin locks of hair
Were spotless as the snow
Silently mantling the earth
That last sad night of the dying year.
Four days and nights
He had sat beside the bed
Of his life-companion.
But now the watchers by the bier
In the adjoining room,
Were dozing in their chairs.
The cold night
Had driven the mice from their hiding,
And the loud tick of the clock
No longer frightened them
As they scampered over the hearth.
The man was breathing heavily,
Although his eyes were open,
And his stare fixed upon the fire:
Down by a gnarled oak near the spring
Two children played.
Rebecca had dipped a dock leaf
In the water,
And now whisked it in the sunlight.
Against the trunk of the tree
There was a playhouse made of broken boughs.
The girl's dolls were lying on the green moss bed,
And a little cracked slate lay upon the ground.
An almost illegible scrawl was written on the slate.
Two childish hands had traced their names:
"Rupert—Rebecca."
And the words were linked together by lines
That looked like twisted ropes.
The boy and girl sat down before the playhouse,
And crossed their hands in imitation
Of the lines that bound their names together.
And then they smiled
And looked upon the dolls
Asleep in the fresh June morning.
A chunk broke and fell in the ashes.
The blaze died into a glow of coals.
In the gray beyond the dog irons
The old man saw two figures
Sitting before an awning:
Two golden haired children
Slept in a little bed.
The man and woman who sat beside the shelter
Were old and bent,
Their faces thin and white.
They clasped their hands
And looked into each other's face.
And then they turned and looked
Upon the children.
A coal dropped into the picture,
And the fitful fire died
Into deepening shadows.
Next day the pall-bearers
Bore two bodies away
And lowered a single coffin
Into a grave
Beneath the snow-laden cedar.