20
THE FUGITIVE
shadows of passion, like the wings of a home-seeking bird in the dusk.
I forget that you do not remember, and I come.
17
The rain fell fast. The river rushed and hissed. It licked up and swallowed the island, while I waited alone on the lessening bank with my sheaves of corn in a heap.
From the shadows of the opposite shore the boat crosses with a woman at the helm.
I cry to her, "Come to my island coiled round with hungry water, and take away my year's harvest."
She comes, and takes all that I have to the last grain; I ask her to take me.
But she says, "No"—the boat is laden with my gift and no room is left for me.