Gaëtan
Gaëtan Little Gaëtan wanted our mother to paint the walls black so he would not see shadows. Turn off the lights! She said. But others . . . come too . . . he thought. He slept with open eyes while snakes crawled about his room all night long. They fell from the moon’s gaping mouth and crept through the cedar shutters of the green window. On starless nights, my brother now tells, trailing shadows of people holding torches came into the Mapou—sacred tree with its root-ways mapping the earth for an eerie city above ground before plunging under to a condensed breathless world. He opens his arms to speak of the Mapou spreading its mane, wide and high into the firmament: Who would guess at such turmoil inside? Yes, ghosts of the dead and disappeared! Devils! Fairies! They haunt the big tree! And before dawn, go down the tide of the wavy roots, away, to wait again for the night. ...
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