Wanderer

He forever wanders alone.
He has no bed, he has no home.
Silver storms down from the moon up high,
For this is his only guiding light.
He hides from the sunshine
But sails on through the night.
His walls are the trees,
Now barren of leaves.
The cold Earth is his road.
This is what he sowed.

The black sky is his ceiling.
The open wounds are not healing.
He peers upon their infinite number
As he gazes up through the quaking lumber.
The Wanderer just sighs
At the billion bright points of ice.
Of them, there are many; of him, there is one.
He travels on towards the violet horizon.
The cold Earth is his lover
And maybe even his mother.

This king of the night follows the river path.
He feels no sadness, he feels no wrath.
Again he looks up into the endless black sky
And ponders if it looks back down in his eye.
He thinks of the planets and their infinite spin
And wonders aloud if they think of him.
With this weight on his shoulders, he falls to his knees
Then lies at the gnarled roots of the trees.
The cold Earth will be his unmarked grave.
From this, he cannot hope to be saved.

---

Originally written:    December 4, 1998
Put online:    March 18, 2001
Discussion:    This is another poem that was published in UWGB's "Sheepshead Revue." This is about a man who confronts the grim reality of his own fleeting mortality and how insignificant he is in the universe. He has no one (family, friends, etc.), and he is truly alone ("The cold Earth is his lover / And maybe even his mother."), but he is neither sad nor mad at his lot in life, for some of it was by choice (afterall, why would "lover" be used for something he hated, didn't want or didn't like).


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