I regret that I have never traveled far
beyond the borders
of my home:
I have not trekked
across the wild places,
high on a plateau
where I can look across
at a distant horizon
and peaks capped in snow.
I have not jostled
with strange crowds
in an unfamiliar city
with the babble of tongues unfamiliar to my ears
and tasted the unusual air that excites my senses
with strange aromas.
I have not journeyed
across a wide sea
with the winds whipping the sails
and lashing the rain across my face,
on an ocean so vast that no landfall can ever be found.
I have not sunk
beneath the ocean depths
and witnessed the peculiar life
that lives amongst the troughs and rocks
of this alien world.
I have not risen
up to the stars
to look down upon our Earth
so small and blue and vibrant,
hanging in the heavens with only the starlight
for company.
Yet in my dreams
I have been to all these places
and beyond
to worlds beyond imagining
peopled with those long since gone.
Some I see as real as you are now
and we talk and reminisce
about what we did
and I go with them to places
I have only been in my distant past
or unfamiliar ones that seem quite real.
And it is not unusual to me
nor is it strange
that I can converse so freely and easily
with these dead.
But others are no more than shadows
hidden in a half-light
face obscured
or no face at all.
I cannot talk to these
because they turn away
or are always out of reach.
Others I see
are those I have never met
yet seem familiar
though I don’t know why.
Our conversations are comfortable and easy
as we visit places together
that I seem to know.
And when reality restores
my waking state,
I remember only glimpses
of those journeys I have taken
and those in whose company I travelled;
no more than wisps of a memory.
And I regret that I have never travelled far
beyond the borders
of my home.
© 2007
