Hollow whistle my only friend,
Tunes are played as I round the bend,
Another road another day,
The home once known is long gone away.
Scarcely knowing a single face
Of the people met from place to place,
Sometimes I think back twenty years
When a family passes or a village nears.
A choice was made but for the best
In a stuck up society there’d be no rest,
Live by the rules and limit your mind
To be controlled by others being left behind.
So I quit the job at the local farm
Ignored the seasonal toil’s charm,
Never fitting in with my boss to be,
Nature offered more when she called me.
Awake to the golden sunrise’s hue
A merry dawn chorus chiming on cue,
Adjusting my position by an old oak tree
Leaves fluttering in the wind as wild as the sea.
Picking up the bow instincts they call
Stalking the undergrowth eyes are on all,
There a brown shape, shuffling through
Arrow notched away, the hare is my due.
After the meal it’s off to the track,
Forest is behind me: never look back.
A walled road ahead amid field’s of green
Above the sharp mountains clouds drift in-between.
Oh, it’s so pleasing to be all alone
With nothing to guide you but forces unknown,
The twisting path beckons it calls no-one friend
But I know I’ll stay wandering right up to the end.
© 1995
