Return Poem by Rod M.Peters

Farewell wolf-soldier fierce and proud
Standing guard in your wind-swept tower
Amidst eternal solitude
Watched from a distant sky
By lone Cassiopaea's eye.

Farewell vanquisher of fears
Treader of unfathomable paths
Keeping the ancient fire alive
In the farthest boundary
Of a slumbering country.

I'll be gone for a thousand years
For my soul has grown restless
And I hear the call of the bird-woman Alkonost
From where the farmlands are never fallow
And wayfarers cast no shadow.

But I know the day will come
When I'll long to take another draft
Of the mead of Suttungr again
And sit in the company of the bards of old
Who are still distilling their poetic gold.

Farewell shepherd of lost souls
Wandering in the twilight of the world.
They will see your flame one day
And you will puff them through the sky
To where their sleeping bodies lie

Withered from guilt and derision,
Orphaned of dream and vision.