Destinations

Here's a new poem from John Lyons

Destinations

Hoy no ha venido nadie a preguntar;

ni me han pedido en esta tarde nada.

César Vallejo

We are destinations:

not Rome or Athens,

or São Paulo, or the zoo;

as friends or lovers,

sisters or brothers

fathers or mothers,

we are the destination,

and neither travel nor tourism is

an out-of-body experience;

we may take places to our heart

just as we take people to our heart

but we are always the destination

just as we are always the recipient

of the gift we give, of the giving,

of the love we make, of the loving;

we are the place where others

meet us, the point of arrival

and the point of departure,

our bodies and our senses

the theatre of our soul

in which our deepest dramas and

and most unworldly loves

are daily enacted; Barcelona

came to me one torrid summer,

many many years ago, the air,

dry as a whip, lashed my cheeks,

entered the deepest recesses

of my lungs, fed me with dust,

threw me into myself

like a discarded rag.

I was the destination

and nobody called.

Not a hair out of place,

not a stone unturned,

and nobody called.

São Carlos, 12 December 2012