The Outdoorsman’s Lament
On mountain high and valley low,
Up above the avian realm and down the earthen hollows;
Through wilderness and misty wetlands,
The barren trails and woodlands too.
The places that enthrall my longing eyes I seek,
In them my spirit lives.
To scale the skies and trample on its clouds
And once more witness the earth’s perpetual crimes;
The murder of the sun and the killing of the moon
In them my hopes renew.
Gaze upon the earth’s grazing plains as the fog along the horizon spread,
Tell, outdoorsman, the tales of your adventure quest;
And when early flowers blossom, their petals flung wide open
To receive the fragrance of earth’s morning breath,
Tell too of this lament.
I am the guardian of the earth.
Where in all her holy grounds the spirit of the Divine dwells,
In them my soul found rest.
Where in all her holy grounds I pour out my heart’s contents,
My happy thoughts and sad sorrows too,
In there my secrets hide.
Alas, it is I the earth guards!
The destruction of the great outdoors will be the end of me,
For my peace resides there and my soul felt love in her.
But the things that suffer death suffer slowly.
Behold the earth sheds its failing beauty!
Flee to paradise kin of my soul, friends of my ambition!
There in the realm of the divine where death cannot follow.
Pray salvation comes to set free our earthly place,
Her spirit death holds in its breathless embrace.
Oh the shame and ruin that will befall the destroyers of the earth!
When love finally extinguished their hate and charity damned their greed.
When nothingness becomes their second death,
‘The grave will be their house and darkness their bed!’
oOo
This poem was especially written for ‘The Outdoor Addicts‘ newsletter maiden issue.
