The Man Who Wasted Time

He crouched there. Just there.
He was Mogwa. There.
The end of his day, like its beginning
met on the shadow of his porch
that way, in that peculiar light.

We tried to imagine what he saw
as we passed quickly by and obliquely
thought, A dusty dirt road cannot
be the all of that man's world, cannot
so entertain his thought, cannot be all.

The villagers had assured us that Mogwa
was as sound of mind as you or I; and
what might pass before his eye, what he did,
was none of our concern, but that he got it right.

We hurried on to Blanche's to prepare
the decorations and sort the names by
age and grade and talk the fabric of the day.

There was turmoil in the capital and soldiers
on the streets. Next week the Superintendent
will inspect (they'd paint the houses on his route),
outside the clouds are thick in equatorial grey.

There was a good deal yet to do; but these children,
at least, would have some memories to see them through
the next step on the way to what? no one ever knew.

Still, we'd surround each name-tag with such stories
as we could recollect, stuff them with the promises,
the possibilities that might await them yet; even those
with little obvious facility, we'd speculate on that.

Ah, she's too bright (if the boys don't catch her); too
frisky if they do. She'll be in London without a look-back. We
wrote 'travel and adventure'; and agreed, the shoe would fit.

The next was 'industry and thrift', then dear 'trouble'
troubled us (a laugh or two) until we saw 'clever and lucky'
would cover it. Each we tailored, 'friendly', 'thoughtful', 'gifted';
groped for just the word that might, when nothing else might do.

Until we came to one that stopped us in the middle
of a roll, and not a one of us had anything to say.
About his 'stillness' we could all agree, and certainly
a guilt passed through as we struggled to recall his name.

Silly, of course we knew it after all these years,
it was our job, the soul of what we taught; to know
the names of things, first among them those few
precious names put in our care, their names most of all.

Now we had faltered, exposed ourselves in such
harsh light as we could not avoid, could not brush
aside. One of us recalled the first day that the boy arrived
from somewhere in the bush. He was barefoot, bright.

Records had insisted that that they needed more
than simply 'They' and 'There' for family and location.
We told them that we'd have that information soon.
But 'soon', soon came and went and 'where' remained a question.

He was polite and attentive, we'd no problem there.
Did his lessons, knew the answers (though some
noted that he never volunteered). He'd show up
on time and leave last bell, to god-knows-where.

But. when one spoke to him, to draw him out
or get him to engage, though he'd attend all right,
as soon as you would turn away, he'd vanish
from your thoughts, and not a trace of him remain.

Finally, we hardly saw him at all, though he was there
day in, day out. Just a bit of dark hair or a silent step
as he passed by in the hall, or we passed by him, or
what might have been him, a shadow in a chair.

A violent pounding at the door detached us
from our guilty reminisce and in flew 'News &
Information', drenched head to foot in the afternoon's
torrential rain. Mogwa's dead! Mogwa's dead!

Then the sky broke, once again. Then it cleared.
And while the others focused on this new event,
I pocketed the nameless tag, certain that it's absence
would not be noticed; and, indeed, it was as he had been.

Saturday I stopped by school, the 'Parting Dance'
would be held that night. I filled a small cloth bag
with things I knew would be all right for him:
his diploma, a tablet and some pencils, a rock I'd found . . .

Then walked home over ground I knew I had to go
(though there were other ways I could have gone)
toward some vacancy that drew me to that shaded porch,
and all the days that I'd seen nothing, and nothing showed.

I stood there looking directly at the rift in our frayed world,
the fabric of its great design in tatters; gaping, mocking me.
(And anyone who'd dare to think 'not-doing' is an easy job,
stop and stare, as I did, into the nothing that was missing
from that empty space; place a little sack there in the shade.)

Mogwa appears! Wild things appear!
The sky broke and shadow burned through
the world. Phantoms spoke! Horseman rode
to where imperiled symmetries were breached.
Fear fell everywhere and chaos neared.
The porch grew dark,
the old man glowed.

I found the nameless tag and grasped it
like a hot shield. Shamed and trembling
there, I scrawled: 'There. Just There.'

On the back I wrote, 'Mogwa's Child.'
and the frightful vision of a world collapsing
disappeared as I put the name-tag in the sack.

Monday is a little sad and dim. The
airport lorry's waiting for me at the square.
This one last time I'll say good-bye,
one last time I'll eye the empty porch.
The little pouch is gone, and so is he.
In its stead, a pair of shoes. The very
pair I'd given him, his first day here.

Now and again, when the news-wrapped
day delivers shadow to my door and
the air, quite covered with excuses thick
in paints of equatorial grey, something will
catch my eye, something will catch me unaware,
and obliquely I will I see him there,
There. Just There. Mogwa's Child.