The essence of travel,
like a luminous thread
in the recesses of memory,
unravels again
after years of neglect,
for it has not faded.
Its radiant color knows no border
in the confines of categories
or in the dark closets
conveniently tucked away
with letters and photos from a parallel life.
There is wind behind the doors you would pry
the sudden brush burnt scent
of foreign fields and infinite sky.
The rush is immediate
and time is flipped on its side.
All your notes on motion scatter
like prisms of decisions,
east or west?
Best the flicker of inspiration
that always leans towards the far flung places.
Once that tide turned,
all that was constrained
is drawn out by the moon,
a cool depository of longing,
leading the retreat
into phases of falling.
The life left behind
each night is deconstructed
and getting further away.
The illusion of brightness
only highlights the reality of distance,
for change was continuous
and none could get too close
to whatever we were seeking.
The boundless wind makes haste on the ocean
initiating waves
like raised lines from the empty page
distorted by fingers
that try to tighten and contain
belief that there is form to disorder,
something to be worn of the unseen,
draped like an ancient sweater
over the shoulders of the highway
that runs unencumbered on the periphery.
It sounds like surf next to the machinery,
a tempting break in the repetition.
So you’ll make an abrupt transition
towards the outskirts of that city
and the wilderness that runs the length of the past.
The parkway is traversed by twisting two lane,
stark against the season’s shift to amber,
I think it was September
when the sudden flare paints a forgotten corner
of what you’d remember,
forming the backdrop of further forays
into conscious embrace
of the unknown all around you.
The slow burning blue ridge
turning with every corner,
like the foliage,
we’ll make our way south
towards that place in the past
longing for renewal.
These cycles in the essence of travel,
infinite, immutable,
where one color ends another will begin.
yakskinpocketnotes 