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We've gone back
We've gone back to the place
Where they killed him
We were weeping for him the whole way
The women cried
And the men took off their hats
When we found was was left of him

His mother carried the body
For such a long, long time
His father crying so softly
As he told his oldest son goodbye
A boy so young, a boy so young
And dead.
It broke our hearts
But he was dead
And he would never come back to us

We carried him through the streets
Mangled and torn limb from limb
The women screeched when they saw him
And the men cast their eyes down, ashamed
That they could not have saved him

We carried him out of town
Well,
I carried him out of town.
Because his face, oh god his face
Wide-eyed with terror
Once cherubic
Now twisted
He died knowing horrible things
And he never came back from them
He never came back
No one could bear to see it,
so I shouldered him alone
My little brother, my heart and soul
Gone.

And I buried him alone.

But the place where he lies is breathtaking
A lone, low hill in a green meadow.
And stones covered with that moss he loved to rub between his fingers
A willow tree sits over him now

Like the one he played under when he was two or three

and his sisters chased him around it, whipping him with switches

made from her branches

and his brother tried to catch them and wrestle them

I miss him
I think of him constantly
And I wonder who he could've been
Would he have grown up to be like me?
Would he look good? Would all the girls love him?
Would all the boys want to be his friend?
Would he have been bookish and solitary?
Would he have been happy?
He's dead, though,
and everything he could've been died with him
Except me

I miss him, I do
But the lone hill in the green meadow is far away
And I have a wife to tend to
She needs me, and my kids eat from my hand
I can't leave them long enough
To sit on that green land
And tell the little boy

what life could've been like
I love him, I miss him,

But he's dead

and I'm alive.