It has been too long since I'd last had a fire
For boiling my teapot and make the flavour;
The next morning the smell of wood-smoke
On my coat stopped me in my remembrance.

After learning about the ancient poet-hermits,
I was racked with cravings for the feral life;
I wanted to drink ice water from a brook,
To let my body grime over with mud and soot.

The life in hills and dales, with fire and wood
Got me the same way of my spiritual freedom.
I didn't sell my soul in some Faustian bargain;
Instead, I bled it out, right-angled day at a time.

Today I try to jump-start it with remembrances:
I look back to my golden years when I was
A wilderness king; I look back to that time
I transited through Xinjiang in wintertime,
Or the summer in Gobi desert I lived out
Of my pickup truck, broke, tan, and smiled,
Coming out very well in all my pictures.

I look back and think 'King to be single again.'
But that’s not it. It’s not the large commitments
I’ve accepted, but the small ones I have shirked.
You know this. So why did you stop? It's not easy?

You know this. Once abandon your health, and
Your body will fail you; once abandon your soul,
And it will grind you into dust, destroying all senses
Until you are lost in ways you cannot imagine. It’s easy.