NIGEL LESMOIRGORDON - The Red Man

A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW


Riding bareback ‘cross the wide plains
Brave Geronimo in his deep pain
Makes his pathway, looking forward
Never losing faith in fortune
To the far off land Dakota
Where he will seek for an answer
To the question that pursues him:
How and why and where he came from.
Warrior, peace man, loving life
Through this world’s unending strife
Boldly, lonely, empty-hearted
Seeking out the place he started,
Gripped and held in life’s deep wonder
Hearing only endless thunder.
‘Cross the wide, dark Gitchigumi
Named and famed by the Ojibwe
Through the lands of the Navajo
Apache, Cherokee and Sioux
On and on he journeys fiercely
Never pausing, never fal’tring
Prowling through his mind’s great vastness:
Infinite, eternal, endless:
Here he seeks to cease pretending
That he knows his life’s true meaning.
Without guide, without companion
Through forests wide and darkest canyon
Holding fast his faith in meaning,
Hope and purpose to his dreaming
Of his love at home awaiting
His return with light enlightened.

NIGEL LESMOIRGORDON

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-red-man/