Like A Prodigal Son To Fire Returned (from The Songs Of The Erinnyes, Sonnets, Odes, and Elegies by Jay Noya, Brigantium Press)

Like a prodigal son to fire returned
Le retour de l’enfant prodigue
The homebound prodigal dispirited
Rain in his wake
Rain in his eyes
Rain in his bones
It wasn’t a road which had brought him to the river
He’d lost his way and slept through a cold night
And awoke beneath a ridge and beyond it was the river
He talked to himself for solace
He said I’ve been walking for years
And he wept not really grasping (not that he needed to)
His predicament just then watching the river
Through a wall of pines up on a promontory
His lips quivered and he wept watching the river
And his heart ached for what couldn’t be



© J. Noya 2006