She saw it first, thrusting
A curious arm its way:
A cross, etched black against
An all-blue sky that day,
On our side of the river-split valley;
Stark on a hill with grassy skin
Rippling alive in the petulant wind.

Who is he who lies there and why,
No other crosses stand nearby?
Perhaps a woodsman whose axe had rung
And now in another hand is swung
In this sweep of rills and trees;
Or a man of the land
Whose bullocks spanned
His tiny patch of flinty soil
Until he tired of daily toil
And decided to rest awhile.

All other plans I put aside
And pointed now a quickening stride
Toward the enigmatic height
For a closer look at the site.
Pausing for breath that soon came hard
And for heavier legs that needed ease,
I climbed half-way, then higher;
Stepping around stripling trees
Planted neatly with foresters' care
To grow the slopes a new head of hair.
I look back on the river people,
Much smaller and far away;
I pause and wave, turn and then
Gaze at my beacon to climb again.

Gaining the top to stand at his side
I consider the twisting, switch-back ride
The watchman took to his resting place
After his hour-glass lost its pace.
No name marker or head stone
Tells a little of his story
Of achievement, birth or quarry;
Only the plain, weathered cross,
Fashioned primitively from a hard wood;
Standing stiffly, prodded by rocks
Stuffed at its foot. A few flocks
Of wild flowers, grow at random;
Nodding slightly, in languid abandon.

Who loved him and cared, were there any?
Indeed, I thought, probably many;
Grudgingly accepting his time had passed;
Putting their backs to the parting task.
I came alone, a long, tough climb;
Burly friends would have had to come in
To carry the burden to the rocky rim;
I like to think it was family and friend,
Crowding in heartsick, at the end;
There because they loved him
Before remembrances grew dim.

Had he asked a stricken wife,
Before the closing of his life,
For a favor before finality?
"Give me a bed on the hill," he would say.
So they bore him and his head of gray
To this place and to this ground.
Then they turned his bed around
So his face could look straight down
On the river-forest ballet
Of this peaceful valley.

Turning from the watchman's place
I was arrested by its grace:
On two sides flowed mountain streams
Whispering lullabies that escort dreams,
Laundering slate-colored balls of stone;
Descending with a musical moan.
One was a mainstream, distant and down;
Broad, brown, bereft of foam,
Thrusting quietly toward its home,
Waters vanishing into the series
Of peaks and crevices of the Nilgiris.

It occurred to me how late at night,
With an upward wind just right;
When the monsoon clouds spur flight
And, like smoke, snake and suspend
Wispy mantles on the backs of blue friends
To flood the valley with torrents of tears;
Like the rock-strewn tributaries,
The plaintive voice of the river carries,
And the lonely watchman hears.