The First Journey of The Wanderer
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First published in JANUARY 1991 by MOFFAT & CO, Dowanside Lane, Glasgow, G12 9BZ
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Copyright 1991 & 2000 Robbie Moffat
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Printed in Glasgow, Scotland.
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ISBN: 0 907282 12 1
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This booklet is sold on the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be relent, resold, hired out, photocopied, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.
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THE WANDERER
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It was summer and the sun was going down:
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Northward, the multi-storey windows glared
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Above the chimneys; but to the west
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Beyond the Clyde at ebb, the evening sky
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Reflected by the waters round Strathclyde’s isles,
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Glowed red and created shadows eastwards
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To shade Glasgow from the august day.
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I met the Wanderer by the riverside
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Beneath the Kelvin Bridge, close by the subway
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Where friends and folks from different walks
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Of life relax by the breaking Kelvin waters
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And talk their troubles out over drinks
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In a bistro-cafe well-known to beggars
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Who block the pathway to the cafe entrance
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And ply their trade, take their chances
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With the intellectuals and the artists
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Who patronise the bistro out of habit.
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I was late and the Wanderer had gone:
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Then I saw him standing on the bridge
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Staring into the Kelvin water, which barely
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Trickled as it had been a scorching summer,
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So hot in fact, it had been the hottest
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Summer of the century; but there he was
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My childhood friend, just now returned
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From seventeen years of wandering perpetually.
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At first I thought it was not him -
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I looked away but soon turned about to see
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That he had noticed me standing there
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Thin and greying from a life half-lived;
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And he - elbows perched upon the parapet,
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Hands cupped beneath his chin, his eyes
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A piercing mystery of a thousand tales
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That I would never get to hear -
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He stepped forward and took my hand
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And pulled me to his bosom in a movement
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That made me put my arms around him.
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He made me feel that we had never parted
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All those years ago when we were seventeen
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And fresh from school.
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We were friends again: in a Glasgow vale,
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At a table, we relived our schoolboy days
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Of how we two had faced the world
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Of childhood and never lost a fight,
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Nor failed a test; how we had spent
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