The Past

The past is all about us and within. Haunted by tribal memories, I know This little now, this accidental present Is not the all of me, whose long making Is so much of the past. Tonight here in suburbia as I sit In easy chair before electric heater, Warmed by the red glow, I fall into dream: I am away At the camp fire in the bush, among My own people, sitting on the ground, No walls about me, The stars over me, The tall surrounding trees that stir in the wind Making their own music, Soft cries of the night coming to us, there Where we are one with all old Nature's lives Known and unknown, In scenes where we belong but have now forsaken. Deep chair and electric radiator Are but since yesterday, But a thousand thousand camp fires in the forest Are in my blood. Let none tell me the past is wholly gone. Now is so small a part of time, so small a part Of all the race years that have moulded me.