minstrel: Revised Offering (Topic: Wanderlust, Rhy

[Mike Baker]

Taking to heart some of the comments others have made, as well as dredging 
through my own nigglings, here is the revised poem "Wanderer".  I still list 
it as a Work In Progress due to a number of factors, some of which include 
hesitation as to how well it can be performed.

Probable first public (spoken) performance of the piece will be among the 
filk circles at Westercon 49; I'll sing the thing if an appropriate tune 
comes to mind before then.

     Wanderer
         Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra, A.S. XXXI
         REVISED June 14, '96
     WORK IN PROGRESS, Copyright 1996, Mike C. Baker

   I've been told the tales of the bold Charlemagne
   I have heard of the conqueror of Gaul
   And I've friends that speak of the Round Table's peak:
   Yet none of these gave me the Call

   My ears, they have heard of the pilgrim's fair word,
   My tongue echos much that they say,
   But the road 'neath my feet is more achingly sweet
   Than any single saint's fair holy day.

   Many wonders my eyes in the markets have seen,
   My hands the fair brocades have held,
   Yet none is so soft as the hay in the loft
   When no bed is left among the cell'd

   Ten thousand miracles may be flung at my feet
   By the vendors in Eastern bazaar:
   More wondrous by far is the view from a spar
   In the rigging of ships black with tar.

   Wind from an alien plain scours my eyes
   Dust-scent & pollen assail 'pon my nose
   My feet in the stirrups, my tongue bathed by syrups,
   The wind Calls forever, my mind does suppose . . .

    Wanderer I am in the long caravan
    Wanderer also on the seas
    And my soul will forever, through sea-foam or heather,
    Drink of life all the way to the lees!

Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard)  s.k.a. Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri 
al-Amra
     currently residing in Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mike C. Baker                      mbaker at rapp.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated 
otherwise! 
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