travel poetry

The moon has shadowed me, like stillborn air
Along a country road, adrift in threads,
Behind a worn out wheel, the pedals bare,
As time leaves nothing here but cast off dead.
 
I share these words with clouds in wind-washed treads,
Where rock-strewn shores in riddled dreams belie
And time has spun in tight a spider’s web
Of figures etched in deep the dusk-drawn sky.
 
With this in mind I set aside my clothes,
Now freshly pressed for travels lost, to where
The door is shut and all my business goes—

The sun goes up and soars on to the end
For me to chase somewhere beyond, alone;
Today I’m here to rest and meet a friend,
By dawn I’m off to seek a shore unknown.
 
It’s been near fifteen years without a rest
And now it seems the noise and crowds increase;
I’ll leave it soon and go perhaps out west,
The burdens gently boxed and left back east.
 
A western wind is blowing, wild and free,
Across the mountains, streams, and golden plains;
I’ll walk a trail of clouds to where they flee,

I drifted south to follow the call of birds,
Then hunted around my former haunting grounds
Out west, where all was won with sand-swept words,
I think, once in the red-baked canyon towns.
In the wind somewhere I hear a whistling stone
And stop at the bar along the canyon end;
The moon is always high when drinking alone,
But it’s peaceful now while watching the river bend.

There was an island, somewhere in the sea,
Where he sailed for miles away from any land,
Alone and guided by the stars he could see
To a distant shore on a narrow strand of sand.
 
Setting foot, he looked at a far off peak,
Eyes rising past a thousand ancient pines,
Through which he climbed past cliff and creek
Until at night he stopped to pray for signs.
 
He woke as the sun began to rise from the sea
And heard the birds come out in a choral song,
To sing a melody of when his heart was free