I was a rover, footloose treasure-trover,
Bahamian, Brit, Dane, Aussie, Canadian,
Easily settling, never for very long,
Followed the sun and the moon with a song.

Now roving is over, Death’s raving and raging,
The threatening madman, waving a knife.
Even my babies have babies, are ageing –
Aren’t there any more decades left in my life?

I was a rover – no grass
Grew under my feet as I’d pass.
Now grass grows and I cut it.
And it grows, and I cut it.
I was wired, now I’m tired;
Fired up, now I’m mired.
And the grass grows again… I give up.

Let me sleep in the sun, and sleep slow.
Let me sleep deep.
When was that rover me?
Let the grass grow.
Let the moon be the stone over me.

This poem has just been published in The Orchards Poetry Journal, where it immediately follows the poem I posted here a couple of days ago, ‘Roughing It In Europe‘. It makes a nice, somewhat sardonic, pairing. Appropriately, this one was written several years after the more enthusiastic earlier one. (From the Orchards link above you can download the Journal as a pdf for free, or buy the very lovely finished product.)

‘Ex-Rover’ is one of those poems that stretches the meaning of the word “formal”. But it has enough rhythm and rhyme to make it relatively easy to learn word for word, and that is a lot of the point of poetry in any language. I feel barely any shame in putting it into the world in this ragged form. The ragged form suits the mood of the piece, after all.

“wanderer” by Cornelia Kopp is licensed under CC BY 2.0