Worn Passport
This passport is too full, its pages
Stamped in diverse shapes and colours
Testament of frontiers, unbridled
Wanderlust, philanderings, ups and downs,
Places to stop, to stay, memories
Arrayed, displayed, sorted, washed
Airing like clothes on the line.
Too full to measure now
the depth of life’s surprises
that the sun lies in the north,
when first you lie in the south;
How the moon looks different when
sunrise strikes, alarms its other side
The light waves long and stretched
through morning air strike blue
On ships turning their faces
to the harbour in some protest
Against the pull and tug of ebbing tide.
This passport is too short for all ambition
To hear again the rhino’s puffing breath
To walk the grandeur of Elysian Fields
See the mountain kingdoms crest
Above Kathmandu’s exotic colour
Feel the bucolic quiet of Castle Coombe
Glory in Tuscany’s soft light
Saturna’s sunsets exquisitely
Exclaim a perfect day.
To rest once more in Carib warmth
Know faith in waiting for the leopard.
This passport is too old to hold me
Buoyant in the river sweeping
Through some human confluence
Under a summer midday storm
Releasing a flash flood of worried faces
Stressful glances at the clock
Dammed by all the drift, detritus
Of wondering people lost along the way.
Happier to decline, dismiss the names
Once thrilling, evoking adventure, discovery
The big board more burden than blessing
Now, home is where you live.