Traveling, Only to Return

There are days there is nothing left to say.
No blood left to spill. No rants.
No need to remind those around that I love.
No proclaimations of faith.

It is time then, to travel. To go anywhere
that is not here. New walls. New roads.
To eat new foods and love differently.
To pray to the same God in a new way.

Or perhaps, I wonder, I should learn
how to be content when all is well.
Content instead of restles. Perhaps
I am too old to be restless.

But then, I tell myself, surrendering
to my nature. There really is something
new I can do. A change with wrinkles
and old bones.

And so I dust the snow from my old car.
I pack light. Daydream as I eat breakfast.
Daydream as I finish, sip the last of the coffee
and stare out of the same diner window.

Time to go again. Somewhere. Anywhere.
To become just a little uncomfortable,
create a friction, To go, and come back
changed.

About this poem

That feeling. Like spring but in the heart, that something is growing. Or maybe about the wanderlust that has plagued me all my life. Or perhaps the reminder to myself that every time I think it is time to become new, what I really need to become is something older and simpler. A return to my essence. Poetry is never about one thing.

The photograph was taken near my home in West Pawlet, Vermont

Tom