March of the Weavers, and: The End, and: Woman with Folded Hands, and: Killed in Action, and: After The Battle

24 THEMINNESOTA REVIEW HARALD WYNDHAM MARCH OF THE WEAVERS T he men with axes and mattocks. The women with kids sleeping on their shoulders. A few raise their fists and shout curses. Most just march, grimly, aware that in a few hours most will lie down dead. Because there is a limit to suffering. Because there is a limit to what can be endured. Because there is a rage so quiet it possesses a man beyond reason and even fear of Death means nothing to him. Because he has decided something deep in his mind and must have satisfaction. THE END So. It is over now. Lay them out gently here, in the weaving room, beneath the heavy looms they worked. Nothing has been won. Just Death, the only solid prize. Bite your knuckles to the bone, on a hard bench, in the dark, for no clear reason-not for grief because it is all so overwhelming— but for despair, which is soft and broken, cutting with every breath the valves of the heart. 25 WYNDHAM They will be buried now. Their peaceful, tired faces, their big feet, big hands. The loom, like a terrible engine, stands above them patiently. Here is a tender look, almost envious, wanting that peace. Bring them in here, brothers. Death is so simple, after all. We knew it would end like this and so it has. . . WOMAN WITH FOLDED HANDS The woman with folded hands looks back at me in the lamplight although I am not in front of her and she now dead for over fifty years. What she knows is permanent: the solidity of pain beneath her hands, the unborn child, stretching her flesh, sagging her muscles, pulling her toward death. This is life's pleasure. She is resigned. And her shadow on the wall is darker than the knowledge her eyes contain. She waits, asking nothing, expecting everything. Ahead of her is pain and deadly struggle. While there is still peace, she prepares herself. 26 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW KILLED IN ACTION It must be easy for them, the ambitous gentlemen who start the wars, the politicians and the diplomats and the kings, the generals with their swagger sticks. They talk of Real Politik and Bismark. They consider maps and move men around on charts. They write orders on little scraps of paper and receive reports of battles over the telephone. It must be easy for them, masquerading murder with fine uniforms, decorating slaughter with parades. No doubt they consider it a good day's work. Those generals, those politicians, those kings. It must be easy for them. AFTER THE BATTLE Among the bodies that evening darkness turns as shapeless as the lumps of new-turned earth they lie upon in stiffening, tangled heaps, she bends and searches with her shaded lamp, touching face after face with her fingertips, until she finds the boy who must come home. It is past bedtime now. He must not sleep uncovered on the cold earth all the night. He needs to be washed-up and laid to rest. After the battle, when all the arguments that sparked its rage are silenced, there remain these gestures, this woman's outstretched hand. ...