Poem 'New Age Pilgrim'

[Patti Barton]

'NEW AGE PILGRIM'
By Patti Barton - early ‘80s

I left my home and humped my swag
With mind-food over-filled
To go in quest of the Holy Grail
To the Gobi desert stilled.
But the chalice of sand
Slipped through my hand
As I failed the warrior’s test.

So I packed my swag of worldly goods
And set my footsteps west.
I trekked Tibet on a mountain trail
With peaks so steep I could only quail
As I failed the toe-hold test.

So I left for Nilyam
And a lotus pose in the Punjab dust
Of a Banyan-bordered ashram.
But I found, one day,
I had disengaged
From the disengagement there.

So I moved on west with a mystic quest
To lona’s islands fair.
But it seemed to me
The Elysian Mystery
Was lost in illusory history.

So, westward on I wandered nigh
To Switzerland’s snow-clad mountains high
To the Alps of depth psychology
And the worlds of Freud and Jung
But my shadow urged me on again
To a deeper peace in Catholic Spain.

So westward off I went once more
To the cloistered nuns and the silent ones
Behind their monastery door.
Yet here I found my brothers Basque
Made peaceless deeds a holy task
And Spain ran red with pain.

On a trail so long I came
From Siberia to Iberia
And I’d failed the Grail again.

So onward to the ancient Nile
To catch a glimpse of a god-king’s smile
In a Pharaoh’s temple to the dead.
But the underworld with its Horus-head
Turned me away with a darkness dread.

To seek some sun in a Sufi’s land
Sending me north to Samiskand.
Where I danced to the hum
Of a shaman’s drum
And swifter than a Sufi’s twirl
I’d spun my soul in the great world tree
To spirit places one, two, three.
.
But ever still
With an endless will
The Grail beckoned me.

So I started back to the Great South Land
To the place from whence I’d come
To the land where the Dreamtime haunted me
And the Koori folk called me home.
But I turned away from the Dreaming too
And the wise wild blacks as well.

‘Til I came at last to the holy place
Where I found the Grail did dwell.
It dwelt right here in my city home
In seaside Sydney all along,
Buried in my heart it brightly shone
Deep in my heart - was Avalon.

[Melanie Dilday]

Patti, love this poem!

[Patti Barton]

Hi Melanie, many thanks for reading my poem. It's funny, but I mentioned that piece to a friend today whom I was taking to the airport for her trip to India for four weeks at Sai Baba's ashram. I don't think this poem scans very well, for most of it, and I may rework it some time, if it's worth it. But thanks again for appreciating my amateur efforts. Patti