Wandering

I travelled recently, off the low road of my life
And into a time of high adventure;
Set free to venture out into a world unpackaged and to be inspired by it.
For though there is no west or east on this spinning planet
And we are touched by the same heat, from a burning star a galaxy away,
We seem to be strangers in our day; forged by changing elements
Into differing colours and metals and filled with varying poise and purpose.
I dreamt to meet and know these others and their strangeness,
To see red suns rise as old inhibitions fell,
To feel blood coursing for more than just existence;
And fortune graced me with a glimpse of these dreams.

I saw daybreaks and the night’s creep in vivid array
By rivers that still knew the intimate hands of humans,
Beneath mountains that retained magnificent mystery
Or in mud that remained the favoured home of happy children
And on one memorable morning, in the sea off a Khmer shore,
I swam naked in fluorescent swirls of plankton,
Glowing bright in black waters and framed by shooting stars;
Connected and contented with it all beneath glistening skin.

Then enriched further in my encounters by the kindness of our kind,
A beer here or meal there and words of different meaning joined in conversation
And all I had to offer taken and in turn paid forward,
The warmth of my heart shared with those I would never meet
But now returned to neat, square lands and home
I dream again of unknown wonderment in this world;
Uncertain as to why our lives must be
These mere flashes of luminescence in a darkened sea.