Though my childhood home is ever near
And foreign lands be far away
I cannot travel far across the seas
Nor have ample means to stray

Yet I have been to distant lands
To be reached by only few
Who can stretch the bounds of imagination
Until ends are far from view

I have been to distant lands, for sure
That captivate my mind
My soul flies off to uncharted domains
My body left far behind

------

I have been to a land where riddlers
Are hailed and honored as wise
A land where an eternal tower
Reaches above the skies

Where wraiths walk the land as protectors
And farmers and kings are the same
Where a legend that is also a riddle
Bids a young prince to search for his name

Where a wise woman of yore and history
Is a pig-woman in a king's realm--
A king who can turn to a crow
While another can fade into an elm

Where the enchanting music of the harp
Is played by a man marked with stars
His destiny is in it and the sword
Wielded by hands scored with vesta-scars

------

I have been to a land where a city
Once so fair and white and proud
Awaits the return of the king
And fights off its burial shroud

Where the race of Men is tempted by power
And yet the small ones stand so firm
Where the immortals slowly are fading
And kings betrayed by the tongue of a worm

Where the son of the Steward is broken
By a ring of gold and fire
And his horn was hewn by redemption
While he was saving those of the Shire

Where a man who survived many battles
Was swayed by the power of a Ring
They thought that the bloodline was broken
Before the crownless rose again to be king

------

I have been to a land where the dead
From their graves and their corpses did rise
Where daughters of famed heroes
Took advice from a cat that was wise

Where a King was trapped as a sculpture
For hundreds of years on his own
His best friend betrayed him for power
And so the seeds of bitterness were sown

Where the daughter of Seers is an outsider
And goes on a quest most grave
To rescue one enslaved by the dead men
And help a young prince become brave

Where the power of music can bend
Even the strongest of spirits to its will
And a Necromancer's bells are feared
As the tools of a cult most evil

------

Though my childhood home is ever near
And foreign lands be far away
I cannot travel far across the seas
Nor have ample means to stray

I can touch these lands from my homeland
By opening the pages of my books
For within paper, magic is concealed
A magic far stronger than it looks.

The books I wrote about are Riddle Master by Patricia McKillip, Lord of the
Rings by J.R.R Tolkien, and the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix,
respectively.
26 August 2004