Prodigal American

So reluctant

I have ever been

To venture a field

Very far from home

And  yet so far away

Have I now flown

I would wonder at my fate

Like a weather-vane

By changing winds

Forever blown

Cast here now

In a strange and distant land

The soil and the smells

All so different

The trees that whisper

Even a foreign tongue

And the strange feeling

Of the mantle we bear

The sun upon our backs

At day's end

Not the same thing

As at home

Our home

Something ponderous

We take for granted

Until we lose it

In our discomforts

And the tribulations

The castle of boredom

Until we must share

Our bed with vermine

The Great Wall Revisited

Trails in the Snow

1991-1993