This poem was commissioned by Artist Carolyn Blake for her book of paintings and poetry entitled
The Unchanging Traveller
The vagrant so desperately needed a real house
Made of bricks and mortar not cardboard and blankets
Yet as he was penniless homeless and without a spouse
This was not an option he felt he would soon encounter
He begged on cold pavements for money to eat
There was only shop doorways to shelter and sleep
On warmer days for a welcome free treat
He wandered by the railway in mossy fields littered with sheep
Determined to revive all hope that he would not sink any lower So he searched and searched of somewhere to call home
Away from the thoroughfares and paving slabs feeling even colder
Off to the solace and welcome of winding lanes strewn with hawthorn
Upon wandering yet feeling so abjectly low he came to a railway line
Where he suddenly chanced upon a small house perched upon the sky
Carefully positioned on tall wooden stilts headed momentarily by a crow
He climbed up tentatively as if entering the magnificence of Palace of Versailles
Once his struggle to reach the door which was tilted slightly ajar
A small room before him only 10 feet by 4 a small burner not aglow Now in the room he could envision how to alleviate his plight's scars
He didn't know to whom it belonged yet unused he felt a certain entitlement grow
He thought the railways may have owned it in the past
Yet it was so bare it gave him the impression
It had been waiting for him to be his safe warm lair at last
So he decided to claim it for himself a god given piece of heaven
He gathered twigs and branches to light the old stove of iron cast Ensconced, a hope of reprieve with a welcoming sense of progression To enable him to hatch plans on how to rebuild his shattered past
He felt rejuvenated with positive actions for an imminent redemption
So grateful, thankful that both his life and circumstances
Would be unrecognisably reformed no longer in permanent apprehension
Copyright Natasha Anne Kelleher October 2021 All rights reserved
Image No Copyright Infringement Intended
