The Hobo King or
The Day I Became a Travelin’ Man
On the road between two great oaks
Which looked to me like hands
Raised into the sky
I met a man who said he was the hobo king
Magnanimous and wise.
I asked him where his thrown was
He said he wore it on his feet
I asked him where his kingdom was
He stretched his arm out wide
I asked him how he ruled his subjects
This is what he said
“The government which governs least governs best
So I’m then I must be the greatest
Because I govern not at all”
I asked him where his castle was
“Above the tops of trees,” he said
“And underneath the clouds”
I asked him how he became this man
This mighty hobo king
He scratched his scruffy beards and thought
To organize the tale
He spoke and then this is what he said
As best as I recall,
“When the summer came
I picked up my bag and bore it
Over the mountains
So to find a place I might call mine
I left behind my brother,
Who never stopped to look
I left my sister there,
For she never stopped to listen
I left men and women who I loved, and some of them left me
I love them still
I picked a leaf up let it fall
And as it spun from me
I thought to follow it
To another place
But if I miss it in its flight
I wouldn’t worry for I think I’ll find another
With a brim as wide
A color as green
On another tree
I lived at in a mansion once
And also in a hut by the quiet river
And found it just as fair
But when the rains came rolling down the plains
I found myself once more moving
Moving on a ways
I met a man in Memphis
With hands made out of granite
His voice composed the same
He said to me to gather round the people I had met
From the weary windy valleys
From the bayou down the way
And from the cities I had passed through
So I gathered up a wind
And hitched it to my thoughts
And so I reached each one of them and told them all to come
To sit round my table and to speak to me a while
I said that we might band together
Though we sat on separate coasts
I said that I would lead them, that I might be their king
The bus-boy asked what would our taxes be
I told him I won’t take I thing
Maybe a memory or two we’ll share,
If he would agree
The farm-hand asked from between the corn
Where we, bent low, shared bread
During my passing through
“How would we serve the kingdom
You build out of each step?”
I told him they already had
By onetime meeting me.
The housewife who let me in the basement
With her husband out to work
She asked if she might join me
(I fancied her my queen)
I told her that the road to me
Did not follow my trail
But rather that she should step
Step out from her house
And find the route that she found best
And take it for a while
And if that wandering road turned sometime back on me
Then so should it be, or if not,
The road itself is as much a part of me
It is the purple vein that pops up from my hand
And ran back to my chest
And though stopping by my toe
I’m sure will find its way sometime to the heart of me
And so the poet, hat cocked sideways,
Who met me by the Hudson,
Crowned me with words that I hear still
Dancing through my ears
As so I serve each person that I meet
As each of them serves me
And so you, you too have my loyalty
And I hope you’ll gives yours to me
I do not ask much of you
Just that when I am sitting by
My fire late at night
I might recall your face and hold it in my mind
And with memories as good as these I’ll live a thousand times”
And so he touched his hat and smiled
And then walked on down a ways
A wind went through the oak trees
And they bowed down in deference
To the mighty hobo king.
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Submission Name: The Hobo King
