Longing for the Back of Beyond ©

Bold journeys with the northwest wind
To the country of wild-romantic nature
Resolutely I had already planned as a child
Yet only adversities occurred at that time

Friends often tried to talk me out of
The far search and maybe meant it well
Believed there are better things to do
Than digging for long lost Celtic roots

October trip on a most beautiful rainbow
To my father who never in life have I seen
Moving now all over the four corners
Of the earth up to the back of beyond

With solicitousness relatives shook their
Heads and could not quite understand me
Preferred to get rid of the old practices
But I want to pin up my Celtic hopes on it

Travel under warming rays of sunshine
And again in the end standing at the grave
Had to pick up the tabs of destiny myself
Nevertheless I will carry on restlessly to seek

Workmates had a good deal of pleasure
At my endless Scotland holiday fever
I enjoyed joking with them to the full
As the serious side of life’s turn is later

Mysterious ancestral voyage through fog
I set forward to my maritime Garden of Eden
And let my wounded soul gently bathe
In the light of the Atlantic Muckle Fugga* …

… at the back of beyond
…at my back of beyond

* Northernmost Scottish lighthouse in the Atlantic Ocean

Note by the authoress: my German original is a rhyme, unluckily it wasn't possible to keep that without changing my intention too much. Also, sometimes the lines are very long in English, but I hope that the poem itself still makes sense.