Like him, I had no wish to trudge and gape conspicuously.
After the age of seventeen I never travelled without purpose,
whether megaliths in Ireland or stone-carvings in France,
rugs in Morocco, or a lover in Copenhagen, London, Tuscany, Berlin...
Like him I always judged places by whether I would like to live in them.
Finally, aged 60, I found a place I wanted to inhabit,
and five years later found a dwelling there.
Now I have stopped travelling.
A hundred miles seems a long journey.
nothing cocky to un-enlighten your worried readers.
ReplyDeleteA sense of heartache overtakes me, giri, like homesickness,
or watching a loved one walk away.
I once wrote of how a certain latitude might overwhelm me.
A journey with a vision, to see the Gulf of Mexico during our cruel winter.
Yet it is a conscious decision that keeps me on a narrow path.
Is it duty that binds me? Perhaps. My ancestors arrived here not so long ago.