Returning To The Farm Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

No quay waits there - I will not build a ship
To reach that disadvantageous land.
It has no need of me, aged and paltry
As I am - its shores will not welcome me.
It is no country for old men it seems -
Neither those past, nor passing nor to come.

Rather I will saddle up the spent bay pony
And take him back to the lanes that we loved
Kicking up a canter along the verge
Past the hawthorn hedges under the oaks
Not seeking Ithaca or Byzantium
But homecoming to the farm's fields.

I have learned the names of many places
And travelled skies and highways aplenty
But when I was young the world was mine
There in the cowsheds, lofts and stockyard
And it will be well enough to amble back
To greet the boy who waits and never left.