One of the Magi
Decided to go visit the long-lost relatives
I'd left when I broke away from family
To find myself as a teenager.
You can never enter the same river twice
Wanted to try and pick up the thread
Of lost decades, catch up, hang out, break bread
Wanted to renew contact, like mum said
Progress has a cost - loss is the price
It was winter: roads were blocked with snow
And normal temperature dropped way below -
The very dead of winter .
And the car - worn out fanbelt lost,
Engine coughing, tires spinning in the frost;
Other drivers were rude, without inhibitions,
And fractious in the icy conditions.
All the hotels were filled in a trice
And in any case charging high prices.
You can never enter the same river twice
I regretted leaving my warm apartment in Queens
The little Italian restaurants and waitresses in their teens
The journey seemed to be just a foolish waste of gasoline
Progress has a cost - loss is the price
But I could tell I was getting closer to the old place,
Then at dawn I came down to a temperate valley,
Free of snow, with a river and a water mill and three trees.
I checked at the bar in town
But there was no information and so I continued,
And I found the the relatives’ place in the evening
You can never enter the same river twice
It wasn’t really that great of a reprise
Barely satisfactory to appease them by degrees
With them I was no longer at ease
Progress has a cost - loss is the price
Well, that was a long time ago and I would do it again
Even though seeing these relatives
Wasn’t really all the fun I’d thought.
Turns out I had changed so much
You can never enter the same river twice
It was strange even after we shared our meal
Just to know how differently they and I could feel
To me they were now like strangers real
Progress has a cost - loss is the price
Entered in Debbie Guzzi's contest
Based on Eliot's JOURNEY OF THE MAGI
(6 lines have Eliot quotes)
Copyright © Sidney Beck | Year Posted 2011
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