Exile without Return

The metropolis is faced with conflict.

City light enfevered as a blow.

The years we have lived

Are lost in a sea of remembrance.

In subways we have been

Companioned by fear.

We could not cry

Because of tenseness in our throats,

Buried in blood

Close to the surface of bone,

Seeping the marrow,

Our nerves rapiers of pain.

We long for the mountains

Cool with imagined strength,

And again we would like to walk

In the fteedom of rain,

(Our flesh deluged), uncaring for cold

That would give once more

A certain correspondence

With heredity of race and the soil.

Norman Macleod

[245 ]