Travelling Light OR Home Birds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Today's poem has not appeared on the blog since 2012.

One person may love to travel the world, another may prefer to stay at home. The only reason either may envy the other is if they are unhappy with their status quo, in which case it is up to them to do something about it.

Happiness means different things to different people; it can be elusive, yes, in which case all the more reason to look at why we are unhappy…and DO something about it.

Me? Yes, I like to travel, but at heart I am a home bird, just as well since I have a mobility problem these days and getting out and about is not easy although I have to say I am happy enough in my own way. There are aspects of my life I would like to change, of course, like not having a partner to share it, and growing old with all its associated slings and arrows, but there is not a lot I can do about either so I enjoy what is good about my life and ignore the rest. (Well, most of the time.)

I once overheard one friend tell another that he needed to grow up, get away from home and see the world. "You can't go through life travelling third class in books, TV and films." I will never forget the reply: "Why not? Everyone I love is here, and I love this place. Besides, I only ever travel first class, and it doesn't cost the earth. Oh, and I don't need a passport either." The friend shrugged, lost for words. His companion disappeared into the local public library.

TRAVELLING LIGHT or HOME BIRDS

We’d stroll miles of golden sands,

my love and I, happily holding hands,

exchanging dreams of foreign lands

we wished ourselves to be, suspecting

we’d never, in reality, go there,

book hols abroad by train or plane,
thereby seen as home birds

We’d share our dreams with waves

and ice creams at feisty seaside places

where gulls' cries eager to greet us,

having already let passing clouds know
we would always be up for joyrides
across time and space, though friends
may take us for home birds

Now, showing its age, that lustre,

of sands where we'd stroll, you and I,

yet seagulls still yelling greetings,
waves and foam confiding far shores

such glorious memories but a few 
would credit the likes of you and me,
long since tagged home birds

Our globetrotting haunts me now,

all those faraway places we'd get to see.

for clouds taking us up, up, up 
and away, setting us down wherever,

a part of us forever, kindred spirits 
on a roll, your death failing to part us,
we home birds, still flying high

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012, 2020