I will find a place
Where people cannot hurt me
A wilderness remote from human ken
I’ll build myself a home a log wood cabin
Forage for berries fish and live alone
Left for dead
A haemorrhage to the brain
He’ll never speak
He’ll never walk again
Unconscious for so long
His spirit deep inside
Emerged to walk the world
And walk alone
His parents died while he was away
He could not cry not feel a blessed thing
Until he spied the spot where he might live
And then he cried his grief and everything
Post traumatic stress we say today
A beat up man retreated deep inside
Resolved to make his way just by himself
A good man a lonely man with pride
Now the help of others comes to save
Helicopters hover in the sky
GPS from Houston at the rescue
Hospital and better by and by
‘People these days
Have been very good to me’
In contrast to the day that brought him down
In old age the healing of a memory
In final days
He really has come home
Brian Fahy
9 November 2021
+ Based on the story of Ken Smith, a hermit in Scotland these forty years. Found on the BBC Scotland website today. 9.11.21.
Erris Poetry 