to Calais shaking off the world
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invading it from dawn to dawn.
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Carried by the Wanderer's words,
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I saw myself rising out of bed
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I gazed out that French window,
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the May rain came on again,
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cherry blossom fluttered down,
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narcissus drooped beneath broad elm,
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magnolia buds opened up
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to bleed their sweet scented musk;
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a thrush emerged from a hedge
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that edged a walled-in back.
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I love beauty, art and good,
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distaste all that's evil, bad,
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all that which corrupts a child
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or turns the tender hard -
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I am a man reading books
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who's turned his back on the world.
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How can I assess the words
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of my friend - so vastly miled?
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How can I doubt his encounters
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when my own are so short?
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Taking refuge in my garden,
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weekends and evenings in the soil,
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I bury my hands in memories
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and let time pass, as uninvolved
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with all but my own thoughts,
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I dream of being by the Taj Mahal,
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or on the steps of Macchu Picchu
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above the lost Inca world.
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Such romantic thoughts are the norm
|
of those, like I, meant to die
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where they are born, like a flower
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root-bound in a pot.
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These days, I am in bloom,
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open to the night stars,
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open to the morning dew,
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wind and water, sun and earth.
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I am one with nature and myself:
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until I am taken from my world
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by the words of a friend;
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a friend not tied to homely things,
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a friend long lost to wandering.
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What did I find, or indeed
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did I seek from the nomad's life?
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End to end the countries stretch,
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end to end, until back they come
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til memories are all but hazed
|
by the doubts others have -
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For who can say yeah or no
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unless with their own eyes
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they've seen a leper with no nose
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or a dog roasted whole.
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