Across the shifting sand I walk, while all of them lie dreaming
Wrapped in their visions, so different from mine
No directions from them - not in all this time
Even as my head is with questions teeming
And each tentative step is so lonely seeming.
But how, when - what? Why can I
see?
In the nebulous dimness
Of travellers ahead of me
Sporadic signs, scattered tracks, each kinless -
Ah!
They can form no path on sand trickling thus!
I thought I'd an inkling of whence I came
But each turn and glance bids me think again;
On no hope of guidance must I rest my trust.
A proper goal is all that I seek
An alighting, an end point, to fix my eyes;
Yet this goal of a goal - who did this speak?
Why must I need a terminal prize?
The rare rock my fumbling foot found
Was but crunchless gravel - the dunes spurn me;
They skitter away to the same bit of ground,
No boulder - trusty landmark - to aid my journey.
Am I, then, bound to haunt this space
With the bitter obsession of a hollow wand'ring shade
Of a futile myth,
Substance, seeking a trace
By a rootless objection forever delayed?
But what option then? ...
To act, and not to hopeless drift
To probe, and stir up all I can reach;
Nascent events may the balance shift,
And perhaps their troubled progenitor teach.
Howell Fu, Year 12, Auckland Grammar School
