E d w i n   M u i r

A voice, a tradition, a life.
The old taking on the fabulous shape of the new
And words lifted from the earth.
That’s how it began -but where do such things end?
In the myths of course
In lines that justify their origins by their ends.
That’s how it began but such things never end.
The words go on and find a new resonance.
Beginnings? –yes,
In the earth and in the oldest stories of the tribe.
The words are new but the story is old.
He knits himself into the weave of the land
Until he becomes something that cannot be denied –
A voice, a tradition, a life.
And there is neither old nor new;
No, there are words and symbols and these are true:
Engravings on a shield
The lucid and unspoken side by side
The fable absorbing the hand that writes its chapters.