Is It Better to Arrive?
The
traveller said, ‘is anyone there?’
laying her
soul before me bare,
telling me I
must visit New Zealand,
broadens my
mind, travel, obviously.
I’ve nothing
much against the idea,
the place looks
a bit like Scotland.
Some lakes,
some mountains, a geyser,
so I grunted
yes, just to tease her.
She would scatter mosaic snaps
in fans, all
those careless overlaps,
shaggy dog eared.
A dealt hand of cards
in a game of
chance, or Tarot, perhaps
suggests life.
But they’re on computer:
printing kills
the trees she flies above.
Look, there’s
nothing ringing any bells
amongst blurred
colours and pixels.
I’m sort of
smiling as she’s talking
monuments, attractions,
hill walking,
flicking and
swiping at her screen,
sponsors an
exhausting endless stream
of appeal to
my nodding spinning-top,
but I am
not. Drifted dark materials,
studied words
I’ve strummed or feel
to me seem
somehow just as real.
She journeys
to some antique land,
and seeks
for life in barren sand,
in traveller’s
cheques wraps all her plans
and gaudy-coloured
packages.
I could ask,
is it better to arrive,
than travel well
amid life’s wreckage?
But her face
grins boundless and bare
as I’m cracking
stone smiles of despair.
Awesome 😍
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