Questions of Travel

Think of the long trip home.

Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?

Where should we be today?

Is it right to be watching strangers in a play

in this strangest of theaters?

What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life

in  our bodies, we are determined to rush

to see the sun the other way around? 

The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?

To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,

inexplicable and impenetrable,

at any view,

instantly seen and always, always delightful?

Oh, must we dream our dreams

and have them too?

And have we more room 

for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

...

Is it a lack of imagination that makes us come

to imagined places, not just stay at home?

Or could Pascal have been not entirely right

about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:

the choice is never wide and never free.

And here, or there ... No. Should we have stayed at home,

wherever it may be?

Elizabeth Bishop