“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality,
                 and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.”
                                                                                         – Samuel Johnson

This is the origin story, the root
where fatum, fata, & fatista blur
their lines, slipping behind
translation.

                   Of Saudade, we are told
seven words will capture the heart—
seven strung likes beads from seven
syllable lines, lingering in muscles
& the memory of quatrains.

                                    I am of four minds—
the poet, the idealist, the classically trained,
& one who wrinkles logic in the cool
grey confines of the soul.

                                             & we wait
                           as the World waits—
decoration to consort Time, who waits
for no man.

We gather our thoughts and our things—
press them to fit, hide them in baggage
& the folds of brighter words

& hope
they will follow

the rules of foreign travel.