How tiresome my own landscape has become!
So familiar and worn and over-exposed
There are no surprises for the lighthouse keeper
as he walks the well-trodden path down across the bay
to the jutting peninsula
to check the bulbs and polish the glass
How I long to explore somewhere new
To become lost in the thrill of a foreign land
to map the alien contours
trace the bush-clad valley, the sun-kissed hills
halting and enthusiastic as a cartographer
with a blank notebook and sharp new pencils
To run my fingertips over the exposed cliffs
across the names and dates of previous explorers
etched with hurried trembling hands in limestone
faded now like inscriptions on ancient graves
or chiseled so carefully and so deep
that no amount of rain could wash them away
I will add my name too on the sand between the tides
with carefully arranged shells with driftwood
and the bones of long-gone fish with bits of broken diving bells
Every day they will be washed away
and I will walk barefoot down to the beach again and again
day after day to write my name on the shore until the sea has the final say
