Painless You May Never Go Home

Kakdumi, submarine king

Seeking husband for peerless daughter Revati

Waited patiently for Brahma as Ghandarvas play

Twenty seven cycles passed, all suitors, family, and memory gone

Descended to this primitive age, no choice left

Accept the hand of Balarama, avatar of Vishnu

Cuckoo Namjil, bird singer

Soldier well loved, visiting your faraway queen

On winged horse hidden from familiar eyes

Clipped of its wings and life by jealous maid

In your grief take its bones

Leave your country the horse-headed fiddle

Oisin young deer, Fianna warrior poet

Followed golden hair Niamh to the Land of Promise

White horse hooves over the waves back to Erin

Three centuries passed, all heroes, gods gone

Broken girdle hurls you to the ground before saintly Patrick

Molder to bones on the beach of your country

Urashima Taro, youthful fisher

Chased cruel children from the shell-slashed turtle

Married scar-slashed princess of Dragon God Castle

Three centuries passed, all people, village, names gone

In your grief pry off the lid and release a cloud of age

Leave your bones on the beach of your country

Wang Chi, hardy woodcutter

Lost in the woods finding a handle for your great axe

Stumbled upon the Go playing immortals, watched stone against stone

Ate a date from wrinkled hands, felt no hunger or thirst

Centuries passed, handle, family, friends but dust

Return alone to your country

Rip Van Winkle, simple rambler

Poor children hungry and wailing wife

Wandered among ghosts of Hudson and his crew

Played nine pin, got drunk on ghostly brew

Twenty years later awake and return

Reunite with grown children in your new country

All these lives and many others

Tell you that for love or life you may well roam

But painless you may never go home