The Debtor by Edwin Muir
This is another contributed by a reader. I like the sense of everything being connected, and don’t get a negative connotation from the phrase to all I am bounden that I might have expected without reading the entire poem.
The Debtor
By Edwin Muir
I am debtor to all, to all I am bounden
Fellowman and beast, season and solstice,
darkness and light,
And life and death.
On the backs of the dead,
See I am borne, on lost errands led,
By spent harvests nourished. Forgotten prayers
To gods forgotten bring blessings upon me.
Rusted arrow and broken bow, look, they preserve me
Here in this place. The never-won stronghold
That sank in the ground as years into time,
Slowly with all its men steadfast and watching,
Keeps me safe now.
The ancient waters
Cleanse me, revive me.
Victor and vanquished
Give me their passion, their peace and the field.
The meadows of Lethe shed twilight around me.
The dead in their silence, keep me in memory,
Have me in hold. To all I am bounden.
