March 30, 2011 Back-to-Middle-earth Challenge:

"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

-Maya Angelou

Write a story or poem, or create a piece of art on the theme of leaving or returning home.

Merry and Pippin on another adventure.

Meriadoc and Peregrin, S.R. 1484

Two there are who are leaving home,
Two only, out of four.
Years have come and years have gone,
And home is home no more.
(The world ahead and home behind.)

Two there are who are leaving home,
Their faces headed South.
Too many faces now are gone,
Too long they've been without.
(The world ahead and home behind.)

Two there are who are leaving home,
To find their friends of old,
To find the places they had known
When they were young and bold.
(The world ahead and home behind.)

Two there are who are going home,
Where they will find their friends
And in a great White City of Stone,
Their story never quite ends.
(The world behind and home ahead.)

Author's Note:

1484 "In the spring of the year a message came from Rohan to Buckland that King Éomer wished to see Master Holdwine once again. Meriadoc was then old (102) but still hale. He took counsel with his friend the Thain, and soon after they handed over their goods and offices to their sons and rode away over the Sarn Ford, and they were not seen again in the Shire. It was heard after that Master Meriadoc came to Edoras and with King Éomer before he died in that autumn. Then he and Thain Peregrin went to Gondor and passed what short years were left to them in that realm, until they died and were laid in Rath Dínen among the great of Gondor." (Tale of Years, Appendix B, "Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring")