The Tale of Sam Maltster

 

If you are called Sam Adams too

better just ignore this tale

it's not you, nor meant to be.

The Sam I mean is dead --

been that way three hundred years

 

Was in the spring of twenty two

seventeen that is, the year of grace

and far from here, not close at hand

half a universe away

Three billion stars between

 

Anyway, babe Sam was borned

squawking, puking just like you

but un-alike in any other way

Beneath two suns he first saw light of day

a broke off bud from mother's hip

 

From the very first this lad was odd

kept seeing visions in his eyes

and fully formed his thoughts poured out

asking, always asking, where - not why

as if he knew those other places lived

 

Of course, his close knit home town folk

never been beyond or round a corner

didn't understand his passioned plea

to tell him where his brother went

and how that he could go there too

 

Funny thing, buds don't have bruvvers

only biologic clone identity and

undifferentiated group mind thoughts

so how the bleep did Sam envision,

how come to separate himself?

 

Sam explained it this way, said

'it's like a radio tune I hear,

or like a cable fed TV

Yes, you know what Sam meant, sure

but his science wasn't that smart yet

 

He never saw a TV wave

Nor heard a radio speaker speaking out

in his backward quadrant galaxy

technology's advance still parsecs hence

not due here 'till Christmas 2501

 

"Go" Sam heard, and go Sam went

undertaking interstellar salutation

tipping hat at Norns of Fate

Sam left, Sam came, in just one instant

transformed history, transcended space and time

 

Came to proto USA

Came to shining Erie water's shore

by the crooked Cujahoga creek

To the land of Iroquois and Mohawk

left behind his two sunned dawn

 

In the year of Indian wars

Sam searched west and Sam searched east

through the forests, cross the plains

All along Connecticut's reserve

Bud brother lost but calling still

 

Sam found, not John,

but found young Sam

and heard self call out to self

across the empty void of space

and back in time from not yet born

 

Here again, in Boston City, Mass

It was now fall of twenty two

in nick of time for Michaelmas

and at the home of Deacon Sam

came Sam jr., Mary's number 10

 

Our traveller Sam from in this tale

was born again, as some may be

a second time this mewling babe

knew infancy and mother's milk

here upon Sol's third planet, Earth

 

And what, you ask, of brother John?

Did he exist and was he lost

Oh yes, it's as you might have guessed

Sam called John and John came too

from some other place he'd stopped to rest

 

Now in the midst of all this calling

who called who and who called first?

Did some John else precede them both

or many someones over time.

Have we been visited a lot

 

or not?