Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SEEKERS, by THOMAS MCGRATH


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SEEKERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Our grandfathers were strangers and their absurd notions
Last Line: We'll have to walk because we're going farther
Subject(s): Fathers; Grandparents; Knowledge; Grandmothers; Grandfathers; Great Grandfathers; Great Grandmothers


Our grandfathers were strangers and their absurd notions
Said uncle to a century that built few fences;
Pragmatists, with six-guns, their dreams were never fancy;
Beyond their mustaches, their eyes eloped with nations.
Their caravans set wagon tongues at a peculiar star;
Led at last to mountains, they sought to map Fidelity --
Went loco in windy canyons, but, lost, they looked harder and harder.

Our fathers, more complex and less heroic,
Were haunted by more ghosts than an empty house.
Their joy was to thumb their hearts over. Masked like Freud
They entered their unconscious by the second story.
But what they were seeking, or how it looked or sounded,
We heard about only once in a blue moon,
Though they expected to know it if they ever found it.

Every direction has its attendant devil,
And their safaris weren't conducted on the bosses' time,
For what they were hunting is certainly never tame
And, for the poor, is usually illegal.
Maybe with maps made going would be faster,
But the maps made for tourists in their private cars
Have no names for brotherhood or justice, and in any case
We'll have to walk because we're going farther.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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