No Reservations

It looked like an alternative
And Lord knows, you needed one.
You travelled so far and saw so much
And in the end there was no place to rest your head.

Everywhere we are
Hounded, lured out, banished, enticed..
There is an illness over the world
An insatiable hunger that ends in extinction.
So the wreckage of the past
Is the landscape of our future
And we spring off the mark into our suicidal marathon.

We dream of home, though,
Of escaping the lie of it and
Of running into the arms of it, both.
Regretting what we left behind
Longing for what we hope to find
Some kind of sanctuary
If you cannot rest where you are,
This is tragedy.

You were a bard of our time
Travelling eternally and telling stories to send to home
Received in Everytown, yet rarely home.
So, is it that you travelled so far, so fast, so much
Or that you ran for your life until your heart burst?

Migration has been a factor in human.
Through long centuries
We have swirled across the lands
Knocking over boundaries
Flooding into new territory
And moving the earth.
But we are here and gone.

So, you had to go.
It wounded us, but you will stay in my heart
As long as I can hold your memory.

You connected us with other people
Through the communion of the table
There is no higher calling.

You had to leave, again,
For good or ill.
It wounded us, but I will hold your memory
I will care for Home and the Land of it
Awaiting the re-union.  How long?  Until I rest it in.

You were cold, someone said
As if every day were buried under a little more snow.
Shock, brother, it looks like shock.

If only you could have stopped!
There is a garden.


For Anthony Bourdain.