Son of Pillgwenlly

in the former domain of

Gwynllyw Farfog

on the loquacious Usk

and the tongue-twisting old tongue

you sacked conventional work

unless to pay for your passage

eschewing the teeming path

of the Empire’s Christian soldiers

to sleep under the forever stars

in a vastness with railway arteries

and waning bison heart

you were

transatlantic

transamerican

transhuman

you wondered at Nature

the great outdoors

as you wandered

the Great Dominion

and the Great Plains

that reverence for

the unmanufactured world

always walked with you

the lines in a weathered face

telling so many histories

the detail in the hedgerow dazzling

that moment’s contemplation

of the search for

the next coin

the next smile

the next shelter

the next stanza

from you tramping and your courage

in living with physical trauma

to your single-minded campaign

to become a man of letters

the story of you is a lesson

to us in our hours of doubt

and cruel but needless isolation