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Travels

There are these places I’ve never been
but know like the back of my mind
These Isla Negra’s
These Nebraska’s
These Walden’s
I can commute so freely
drink the wine of their vineyards
so cheaply
be engaged
by the spirits of the ocean’s roar
so fully
I need not shop
for airline tickets
to taste their salt
nor ride a bus
to touch the sandstone
of their schools
to wade in the cool mud with muskrats
to hear the cries of the gulls

- Ralph Murre

Walden. Okay.
Nebraska. Maybe.
Isla Negra. Hmm, I don't know about that.
The water spins the other way down there. Even the stars are different.
- that from a friend in response. Point is, with a Neruda or a Kooser or a Thoreau singing the song of a place, should I think that my senses will glean something more? Or, should I open my eyes, look about me, and write the song of where I am? I don't know. I look down to an earlier post (the sacred and the sold-out) , and I see that I'll have to sing the song of where I am without TELLING where I am.