This is where Mr Johnes made his mark

stomping the bogs and wastes, inexhaustible

reshaping the inhospitable wilds

into idyllic park and field

with farmsteads, printing press, workshops –

planting a multitude trees

lavish in spending more fortunes than he had

building his gracious mansion.

He came with abundant faith

and the exuberant energies of new visions

loving the savage land

 housing and feeding it’s peoples

carving pathways in the precipices

bridges over the chasms

and secret gardens

hidden in the hills.

 

Then his life and house fell down

and he walked away stricken, bereaved

his precious only child’s memorial

broken in the burned out church.

 

But I know

retracing those same paths

stumbling over the fallen masonry of that great house

- an odd carved lintel, a fine hewn stone

among the alders, the ghosts and the sheep

that his work, his devotion lives on

and though he leaves no mark

and the forest grows over

that indeed, is his mark.