THE WANDERER’S SONG

The land of my fathers is lost in the distance.

(It’s so long ago, who would know where to turn!)

Those lands far war-torn fiercely rent by insistence

they fought and they lost – war of last-ditch resistance! –,

my hope’s soaring eagle for those does not yearn.

Yet in my shelter, so clearly I’m feeling,

in where I’m now living, the foreigner’s brand.

Everything’s alien under this ceiling,

with people crouched cowering neath this low ceiling,

from me estranged is this harsh heartless land!

In my heart flaring flames blazing are burning.

In my room barren I’m forging my shield.

Back to the distant seas to be returning,

on waves unknown to me, storm-torn seas churning

with my oar making wild elements yield.

In my dreams one day, by tempest enraptured,

I’ll run at the reefs and crags, blasé with bliss.

sink, in arms hurricane-mystical captured,

sink, in transmigrations cryptic soft captured,

in which my longing, unmirrored, may cease.