Stranger

Song no. 1 on "None and All"

After all the miles I’d passed,
I’d all but worn my shoes to rags;
every pebble, crack and crease
was known and knew my feet.

And autumn’s advent could be read
on every leaf, alive or dead,
lone or in company—
to look was then to see.

But who could be such a fool
as I, to choose such poverty,
to have left the home
where long I wintered?

Oh, father had a heavy hand—
he said a roof needs such a man
to stand indifferent to a storm,
fixed in place and form—
but even so, he kept me warm,
and having earned my right to be born,
I’ve seen in better light his reason.

So why to take so wide a berth?
Well, why do rivers seek the sea,
does rain dive down to earth?

Hunger’s pang and pilgrim’s thirst
taught its cost and tried its worth,
kept me begging door to door
yet fettered to another shore;
oh yes, I learned to find my way,
to sing for supper and scavenge waste,
but need is not a patient teacher
and nor is hate—oh, hate me they did,
this unruled vagrant: unreasoned,
gone with the seasons,
bound to his ease alone

But naught is lost when naught's to gain;
I had watched and heard explained
the rites to which they turn their minds
once they’ve brushed their crumbs and rinds aside:
I’ve seen the idols at whose feet
they spill their blood and wine;
I know the gods to whom they sacrifice,
and I know their design.

Their house of right, the sin of sight
for which they’ve all atoned.
Their rehearsed replies, their anxious eyes,
their reassuring tone.
Their voices sooth all raised as one;
they’re never quite alone.
Their practised hands can change a child
from fetid flesh to stone.
They’re each alike; I see their end
in what they all deny:
in spring to grow, in autumn abide,
and in winter then to die.

No, I cannot live by their light,
by the candles they burn
for the children each night;
No, I know nothing of virtue or vice,
seen little the lowlands
and less of the heights,
but the advent of autumn
is inscribed on my eye,
and I cannot again countenance
earning my right to grow.

No, let winter come; I’ll be no
stranger in my own home;
if I have one, the walls will rise
and fall with the sun,
the roof will shake with the wind,
and the silence will break
when thunder rolls in.