The Long Journey

The journey was long
With unremembered days
Of travelling the unforgiving landscape.
Journeying alone, it seemed,
For I had met none walking this same path.
It was not hard, nor was it easy.
And now the evening was upon me,
Calling me to rest.

And there, in that moist and wooded dell,
I put my burden down,
And brought a fire to life for warmth.
I ate what food I had,
Then with the warmth and comfort,
The fancy in me wandered free.
Buried needs and pains cavorted in the flames.
Bitter cups were emptied and refilled,
Until the ancient passion took me once again.

There in the night, with furtive moves,
I took from out my pack the thing of dread.
Unwound the wretched rags
With falling tears.
Out from me, into the darkness,
Came the call for that dark god.
Again, again, I shouted to the night.
The name we know so well,
With anguish loud I called.

Against a tree,
I stood the fearsome thing,
And knelt before it, passion wracked.
Hopeful and afraid,
Pleading there,
For that dark god to favour me.
I called, as you have called,
To that, which with a glance or word,
Could raise or crush,
Could give life or destroy.

I knew the magic as of old.
It’s in us all,
That forbidden rite to raise the dead,
To call back into life the thing we lost,
And make it speak to us again.

So, on my knees before that lifeless form,
I called his name to bring him from the dead.
“Father! Father! Hear me now,” I cried.
And with his ghastly face,
He looked upon me mute.
And I, with never-ending hope,
Appealed once more.
“Dear Father — oh dear God —
Please say you love me.
For pity’s sake dispel these years of pain.”

So cried I in the dark.
So wept my tears
In silent night, without response,
Until, passion in me spent,
I wrapped that bundle in its rags,
And in the dawn walked on.

Copyright ©2001 Tony Crisp