Long Have I Watched the Weary Traveler

A lunar response to Giacomo Leopardi’s "Night Song of A Wandering Shepherd of Asia"

My dear traveler; my wandering poet,

with questions more endless still,

than the eternal roads I wander -- 

you ask me of my path, wonder

if my bright face conceals

a world of weary,

if my illumination

of the valleys I roam exhausts

my celestial soul.

And in the life of a shepherd,

you see my equal:

a life of nothing more

than the petty governance

of a bestial flock,

in company with the streams, the grass:

a lone, fastidious toiler

for a fruitless end.

Each night I rise,

to fill the sky,

to bide the time

until the sun.

Surrounded by sparks

in the infinite air,

I watch my human flock

as weary heads

feel their ignoble weight,

tepid hearts

contemplate gloomy burdens,

spinning minds

present somber questions

to my shabby reflection,

begging that I offer them

the “why” of things,

believing all the while

that my unearthly answers

will silence the hollow echo

of nameless suffering.

And you, anxious poet,

find more riddles than most

in every fold

of life’s great tapestry.

Your days are in angst,

your nights in turmoil.

I hear your pleas

as I make my way

through the solid night:

in desperation you wonder at what sweet love

the springtime smiles,

and whom the winter benefits with her frost,

all the while thinking

how evil life seems to be.

But I beg you look

to the poor shepherd

whom you think life has left so devoid:

he who sleeps heavily at night, tired,

not from world sorrow,

but from the simple driving of the herd

over precious land all the more sacred

for its dawning the same

each new day.

In the safety of his herd

he finds meaning not contained

in the infinite,

nor in the vast solitude,

but in his meager pocket

of existence.

He looks to his own death

with immeasurable calm,

knowing the endless motion

of the maddening world

must take him along

as it spins.

Man is born in labor

because life demands labor,

and though each newborn

demands consolation,

as you so despair of,

in that consolation,

created and bestowed

by a being of

the same fragile flesh

and feeble bone,

our humanity blooms,

as if placed

in brilliant sunlight.

So, too, consider

the wandering flock:

the charges of the shepherd,

the pawns of the meadow.

Their solace is found not

in the absence of tedium,

but, instead, in the company they keep

while they traverse

the jewel-toned hillside.

So that when they lie in the shade,

their counterparts beside them

on the cooling grass,

they find the peace

that eludes the solitary bird,

simply by feeling,

to their left and right,

beings that walk the earth

along the same worn path.

And so listen as I say to you

that all hardship, every hurt,

each deep fear

is a burden to be shared,

not one to be shouldered alone

through a deep, wide life.

For the road only grows darker

the longer it is walked

in the absence of kinsmen,

of friendship,

of a companion heart.

Urge your lonesome soul

to remember

that wings to fly

above the clouds

will not lighten your heavy spirit:

it is only love, shepherd,

that will lift you above the suffering.