The Great Explorer

"And no. No, I never feel loneliness,
It would be a disadvantage in this line of work."

That is why you grew this moustache,
It hides the softness of a mouth,
Cuts short the frayings and brayings,
Tell-tale spittle, tongue trembles, all hidden.
It can curl itself this way and that,
Like the tail of a very masculine rat,
Under the brim of an 1860's hat,
And that will be that will be that will be that.

uhum, clears throat, "God save the Queen!"

Yet, sometimes in the evenings,
The firelight swerves off the tin of your cup.
And your brain starts to beat with a different kind of birdsong.
Searching for something else.
Something you don't quite know yet.
Upwards?
Onwards at any rate.

But no, you never feel loneliness.
The adventure is too great to allow for such,
Such mutterings of the heart.

And do you ever doubt?
Do your prayers ever sound hollow when you pronounce them into the humidity of a landscape which isn't your own?

Doesn't the hugeness of the sky and trudging of the miles make your own country seem smaller?
Or is your country still a gilded box which must be filled,
A frame which must be fitted over other people's houses?

Do you look at other people's kings and leaders,
And see your own sovereign's vision reflected in their greedy eyes?

Your pen bobs in a perpetual chicken scratch after truth.
But, look, aren't the pages of your notebook beginning to crumble?
Pores of ink laden paper tumbling back into the red earth.

And do you ever look at these un-baptised children playing on the banks of an un-baptised river and think that God must love them anyway,
Or else that there is no God?