Lament of Gold

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon the backs of my countrymen
through golden fields
upon shoulders uplifted
that I once liberated

strange now
that I should be bore here
upon your soft hands
and silken breasts
carried on the scent
of your golden hair

strange because I had
wandered far from you;
far from this dawning land;
this holiest of holy homelands

I, who had seen the Pharaoh's
kneeling at Ra's pyramidic feet
I, who had watched
Druidean priests scurry up
giant mistletoe trees
I, who had accompanied
mad Arabs to the holy land
beyond Saladin's great city walls
I, who knew the sword of foreign nobility
and drove armies to the edges of the earth

strange because I had
fled from your hair and breathe
into the arms of Athenian whore mystics
seeking visions in the form of knowledge
and the taste of forbidden pomegranates
on my tingling tongue

I was unpracticed in you soft ways
I listened to the waves of foreign shores
for the voices of mimic gods drawing me forward
and outward
and I stayed my heart at your voice
your hands could not sooth my fettered mind;
my rattling soul jittering for great sails in blustering wind
and pounding horse hooves down dirt roads

your languid eyes could not hold me here
in the times of my youthful heart
and it is strange now that on the years of my death
I should find myself in your arms once more
those pools of eyes staring softly at me
as great and free men carry me over endless oceans
and rocky gates
to the glittering fields of my childhood
strange that your arms wrap as tightly around me now
as they did then
strange that your face has not changed in the intervening years
and I realize in these last dim moments
that I have heard your soft voice singing to me
all this time
across all these lands

you, who have drawn me back here
cradled me to your breast
and sang the hymns of a homeland
I had almost forgot
that my eyes should once more see
vast fields of gold on gold
and my body should flow onto this sandy shore
where children race down the beach
throwing their voices to the wind
and I could look upon your eyes
one last time
and see the mother of all this land
in your fading smile