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Some of the children had fallen asleep. Occasionally an adult or an older child would carry out a sleeper or lead one stumbling home. More than a few adults had dozed off where they sat, stretched out on the floor unashamed. From time to time a song would start, someone would say a poem, someone would rise with a memory.
“I remember one feast day–maybe it was Haymarket Martyrs or Halloween? Jackrabbit helped me design a flimsy that was all dream. I was a luna moth, pale green with yellow veins and a margin of lavender, with plumy ante
“Up among the grapevines
someone is playing the flute
and the song
calls my name.
Among clusters of grapes
half hidden by leaves
like palms beckoning,
someone waits whose mouth
is sweet as ripe grapes,
whose touch makes me bleed
like ripe purple grapes
in the press.
I am in bed with somebody else.
I was too jumpy.
I’m caught with the wrong person,
the whole night to crawl through
long as a tu
All over the hillside lovers couple.
Here I am stuck
with the wrong one
while up among the grapevines
you call my name.”
The songs, the poems were more cheerful: love songs, drinking songs, work songs, poems about sailing and fa
When silence settled again, Luciente spoke gently. “I met Jackrabbit through Diana. Jackrabbit had retreated to the madhouse at Treefrog. I came to visit Diana, who kept teasing me and wouldn’t sleep with me. Although Jackrabbit was staying in our village, I hadn’t got to know per well. All I had noticed was that person kept changing names, and that bumped me a little. Jackrabbit had gone down but by the time I came visiting, was integrated again … . Diana had a moon dance, on the grass there. It was green moon, the moon after the green equinox, and at first I was comping jealous, Diana was fused with per mems and only watching me. And then I wasn’t jealous.”
“Was not like the first time person went mad,” Diana said in her beautiful husky voice, stroking Luciente’s hair off her forehead. “Not a complete going down. Basically Jackrabbit had come to feel taken over by Bolivar. Wanted to work with you,” Diana said to Bolivar, “but also to work alone. To be freer to grow as a person. You knew so much, you have traveled so much, you had worked out your own style, made a reputation. Jackrabbit felt as if per own work and visions were disappearing into yours–perhaps what was happening at Agios Nicolaus too. Jackrabbit lacked a center. Instead was an enormous uprush of vision and great hunger for experience. Balancing came from others. Needed someone to balance you. I also felt Luciente had been wholly sensible too long.” She tugged Luciente’s hair.
“Yet we both saw through your plotting,” Luciente said with sulky dignity.
“What good did it do you? My plotting was healing, old friend.”
Luciente leaned her cheek into Diana’s shoulder. “It would have happened anyhow, when Jackrabbit came back to the village, but then it would have been shorter … . Person died well. That’s a good death, a useful one. Just … too soon!”
A bass voice was singing softly:
“I am dreaming of a baby
floating among others
like a trout in a stream.
I am dreaming of a baby
whose huge eyes
close over secret promises.
I am dreaming of a baby
who drifts in the throbbing
heart of the brooder
growing every day
more beautiful,
closer to me.”
“Sun up,” Erzulia said, and signaled for the doors to be flung open. “We have to give our loved friend to the earth. The day here now. This wake over.”
Slowly the hall stirred like a dog rousing, shaking. People wakened each other. The cups, the glasses, the jugs, empty and partly empty and still full, were carried off.
“Whoever wants a membrance from Jackrabbit, come and take one. Family and sweet friends first,” Erzulia called. Quietly they gathered over the small circle of objects. Luciente took a worn book. “Jackrabbit used to say these. Every poem reminds me of times and times gone.”
Bolivar took the ring with the yellow stone. “I had a crafter make this when Jackrabbit turned fifteen.”
Everything was carried away except the letters and personal papers, which were placed under the blanket by Erzulia. Then Bee, Bolivar, Barbarossa, and Luciente got ready to carry the body. People were going off to work if they could keep awake, or to sleep if they couldn’t. About thirty people fell into the procession to the grave.
The bell was tolling again over Mattapoisett. They walked slowly through the paths of the village, with Diana’s friends playing a death march. The leaves were just begi
A deep and narrow grave gaped on the edge of the woods. They gathered around it and used ropes to lower Jackrabbit, with his papers and blanket, down into the hole. As they made to lower him, Erzulia adjusted the blanket to cover the face. The body reached bottom with a soft thud that sent a shiver through Co
“Friends, we mourn for our comrade Jackrabbit, who died defending us. ‘Only in us do the dead live. Water flows downhill through us. The sun cools in our bones. We are joined with all living in one singing web of energy. In us live the dead who made us. In us live the children unborn. Breathing each other’s air, drinking each other’s water, eating each other’s flesh, we grow like a tree from the earth.’ Cast in the dirt and go. We must work on till we give our bodies back. Goodbye, Jackrabbit.” Erzulia took up a shovel and cast in a load of dirt. Then she passed the shovel to Bee.
Each in turn said goodbye and cast in the dirt, then walked back toward the village. Standing with its root ball in burlap, a young sassafras tree waited to go into the grave. After the others had finished the ritual casting of soil, Erzulia remained with two volunteers to finish the grave. Luciente, who had waited to one side for Co
“Now we go to the brooder,” she said. Co
Bee, Barbarossa, Otter, Sojourner, Hawk, and Bolivar too were waiting already outside the brooder. Then they all entered in groups of four through the double sets of doors. Sacco‑Vanzetti was waiting for them.
“We come to ask that a new baby be begun, to replace Jackrabbit, who is dead and buried,” Bee said.
“I have news for you.” Sacco‑Vanzetti sputtered excitement, trying to speak with dignity. “I have great news. That is, grasp, the council met. Decided to honor Jackrabbit. That genetic chance will be born again.”