Travel // Safari -- October 16, 2012

QUESTIONS//Gerry Bukini (ze Anonymous Poet)

A seed planted

A seed grows

Weeds uprooted

Crops nourishes

Harvest time

Food we eat

Or crops we trade

Goals reached

I wonder

What did the seed like?

What he left behind,

Or what he became?

Where he came from,

Or where he went?

Did he wish to stop somewhere?

Did he wish to go beyond that?

Is that why he left some of them behind?

Did he really want to leave them behind?

Does that mean he was strong enough,

That he overcame drought, insects and wild animals?

Why did he have to grow to be eaten or sold?

Why didn't he stop so the farmer gets all the loss?

Did he want to make the farmer happy?

If he strikes would the other seeds strike too?

Would he be alone?

I wonder

I just wonder

I wonder

Did the farmer see what the seed had to go through?

Is that what he wanted?

If the seed refused to grow what would he have done

Can he force him?

Why force him to move from seed to a crop

Who asked to move into another form?

Is it the seed or the farmer?

Who is moving?

Is it the seed or farmer?

Do they move on the same bus?

Do they share the same struggle?

Do they quarrel?

Who listens to whom?

Who controls who?

Is it the journey that they have to go together?

Or they just travel?

Is it a routine?

Does it make them happy?

I just can’t help it but wonder

I just wonder

I wonder

JOURNEY//Gerry Bukini (ze Anonymous Poet)

Pack, unpack

Park where there is no parking

Few bucks and seat on a tree bark

More bucks and have a pain free back

I know past is black

Light chases away dark

And soon I’ll be back

Now barking is what my heart is lurking

Scream!

“I want to go home”

HIGHWAY ONE: A ROAD TRIP IN REVERSE // Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

We played the I Could Live Here game

The whole way from Joshua Tree to the Redwoods,

Stopping in every quaint village, destitute town

Proclaiming with each nauseating halt:

I’ll be the bike mechanic!

You’ll be the sign language interpreter.

I’ll be the hula hoop instructor,

You’ll be the fortune teller, specializing in small children.

I’ll be the writer in that little red barn.

You’ll drag dogs from their feral nests and train them

To be good, even if it means pulling out their fangs.

We could live here.

In each place, the gas station became our gas station,

The church, our church, where we prayed for each

To love the other more, and we did.

Before too long, we were in San Francisco,

The enormous roar of ocean waves, just a painting

In our brains, hung loose on the wall of memory.

We were nearing the end of things, begged the other

To drive through the darkest parts of night, till night

Itself was a promise that could not be kept.

By the time we got to the Redwoods, we realized

None of this was ours, not even ourselves.

We posed for Moody Self-Portraits with Trees,

But one of us was nervous in nature,

The other was unnaturally quiet

And our parents were still screaming at each other

In their far-away, desperate basements.

We could have been anyone, anywhere,

But we were here, among ancient trees,

Falling out of love.