My Travels

I have traveled far and abroad,
have seen the sun set at midnight to rise only two hours later,
watched the Hungarians wakeboard an underpass flooded by the river Danube in Budapest,
danced drunkenly with the Magyar tribes in a converted underground bunker,
been to a Soviet banned rock concert underneath the backyard garden in a secret bar in the hills of Prague,
seen the first railroad in the Austro-Hungarian Empire still operating,
been from the Adriatic to the North Seas in a single day by train,
bathed in thermal springs in caves within a mountain,
heard the unimaginable Finnish silence so complete the animals won’t disturb it,
had a Guinness for breakfast in Dublin,
raised my glass in more than 15 languages,
been stranded alone in countries whose language I did not speak,
been held in a German Federal Police holding cell for hours,
seen buildings from the dawn of civilization still in use,
walked Mediterranean beaches and mountains above the clouds in the same afternoon,
drunk drinks of orchid and cinnamon and eaten animals unknown to me,
floated across the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia,
stood within the great cathedral monoliths and felt their implacable certainty,
met the many races and counted them among my friends,
found myself and lost myself and found myself once more,
lost my heart in foreign lands—
I have seen these things, I have doen them, all of this as a boy from a farm near a town of 600 in the middle of nowhere living below the poverty line –
but I don’t know what it all means…
the significance of it eludes me still and my certitude has crumbled and faded;
I have less answers now than when I began --
I know only this -- to make the journey and not fall deeply in love, with all of the wonderful things in this world… well, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try –
because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.