The Travels Of Fedoso 4

Title: The Travels of Fedoso

Author: Verderis

The Travels of Fedoso

Part I

Volume 2

Fedoso landed, climbed the hillside,

Kicking stones and crushing shells;

His father's house in vines was shrouded,

It soured and dropped a grapehued brick.

The silent bones enchorused sweetly--

Beauty in the shards of life--

A boyhood image strong as ramparts,

A secret stronghold quite unchanged.

With rusty tools he toiled and tilled;

Fedoso scraped up soil and rock

And put to pasture goats and grievance;

He prospered well upon the land.

Then came the call of peregrines,

And when the final sheaf he tied,

He lit a fire on a knoll

To guide him far away from home.

Through shadowed night he travelled west

Among the chalky, viney hills,

And past deserted towns and fiefs

Crammed with buzzing, silent crowds.

Searched he forests north and west,

And many avenues he tramped,

With many hermit-souls conferred,

More than the leagues of the Roman road.

These are their murmurings intact,

These are the spirits of their words,

This is the wagon-wheel full-turned,

This is the engine of the stars.