LETTER HOME
Why out from the land that fed me fly
To slouch around New Zealand's sleepy towns?
Why cast upon your kindly eye and hand
A shadow of indifference, curt and bland?
Why scorn a parent, break my promised debt,
Sell friendship cheap and duty dearer yet?
Mother, let me tell you,
Though Reason you may think short shrift
If it's Honour you would name for my bequest.
Ten years ago in a dream all dark and dreary
Where spring trod after winter
Unblossomed, worldly, weary
I came across an ancient thought
In echoes faintly written;
Faint meaning too for hasty eyes...
Yet as I delved it wrought my purpose
Slyly by a line of doubt, and bid a little time,
As though it were to me alone addressed.
Dark as forest, soft as leaves,
Merry as morning, old as the grey stones,
As certain as doom.
And from that half forgotten script
Was cast into my mind
A Quest, that like a living star
Would burn my shadow in the grass
Before I fell to comfort, fear and dust.
Time in its sage, galactic rings
Chimes hour and season by
As fellow, woman, kin depart
On swift, unkindly wings.
Fragile-known, these folk,
Toppling like bright porcelain,
Or swept like old brown cobwebs
In a rush of sudden wind,
Passed and past knowing of the Quest.
So mother, my feet do follow paths and tangled ways
Among the well served roads of ordinary men.
From house to house I pass, from land to land,
Costing some a small amount,
Yet bringing others benefit, with a loan of hand and mouth.
Though a traveler may seem
To these good folk no help,
Their kindness is well met. Now further yet:
The unseen steps of this benign, strange fellow
May serve their doom, that now serve him,
As time all meanings mellow.
Thor, 1976