The Recluse Poem by David Lewis Paget

He hadn’t lived in the world of men
Since he’d tossed his job, and quit,
He’d told his boss, ‘There’s no future here
And so, here’s an end of it! ’
The grimy city was getting him down
And the noise was driving him spare,
So he said goodbye to the world of fumes
To head for the open air.

He found a tumbledown cottage that
Nobody seemed to own,
The roof was keeping the weather out
So he thought to call it home.
He cobbled together some furniture,
A bench and a rustic chair,
And sat in the shade of the eucalypts,
And bagged the occasional hare.

The cottage was back off an ancient track
Unsealed, and long out of use,
The nearest cottage a mile away
In a similar state of abuse,
The pioneers had been and gone
Leaving just these standing stones,
A testament to a rugged life,
They were now just piles of bones.

Though at first the silence suited him
It would give him time to think,
He would lie at night awake and cite
That the sky was made of ink,
An ink shot through with pinpricks so
That the stars came shining through,
And feel, as the Autumn dampness fell
On his face as morning dew.

But Autumn shivered to Winter and
It would rain and pour for days,
He’d look on out to the distance where
All he could see was haze,
He’d keep a fire in the ancient hearth
With wood, when it wasn’t wet,
And curse himself for short-sightedness
When it was, or he’d forget.

Then his hearing tuned to the many sounds
That he’d missed before in the bush,
The slightest sound of a twig that cracked
Or a breath of wind, at a push,
He heard the echo of silences
That whispered over the plains,
A spirit stirred that he’d never heard
Before, in his city pains.

But someone back in the world he’d known
Was worried that he had died,
And found the tumbledown cottage where
His friend was lying inside.
He wouldn’t answer his queries when
He spoke in a human voice,
Such sounds were strange to a mind that ranged
When given a different choice.

Then the doctors came to check on him
And the police turned up en masse,
They said, ‘We’re having to take him in,
He’ll harm himself at the last.’
But he raised one hand when they closed on him
In a manner distinctly odd,
And whispered ‘Hush! If you strain you just
Might hear the voice of God! ’

21 April 2015