Renunciation - Feb 14 2022

 

Renunciation

Feb 14 2022

Cold dense air increases lift.

So we waited until midnight

to take off,

yet still barely cleared the runway.

If only I could travel light.

Like the mystics and monks

ascetics and acolytes

who own nothing

but the clothes on their backs.

Who will spend the night

wherever fate decides.

Who stand humbly

and silently hold out their hands,

trusting

in the kindness of strangers.

A light pack

with all the bare necessities.

Leaving the past, with all of its baggage, behind,

no agenda

no destination in mind.

Hop a train

stow away

bum a ride,

or simply walk;

the vagabond life

of a wanderer.

A solitary pilgrimage

to nowhere, and everywhere,

an exploration of less.

No stuff

to anchor me here.

No need

to leave under cover of night.

Unencumbered,

except for blind trust

and a tolerance for uncertainty.

Like a small improbable bird

flying south for the first time;

riding the thermals

of a sun-warmed earth

into the unknown unknown.

In a Valentine Day's article about the flower trade, there was a description of jets loaded with roses flying from Colombia to the US and Canada. (Yes, they return empty!!) To maximize weight, they take off after midnight. I'd completely forgotten how this simple meteorological phenomenon affects air transport. I also thought it offered an interesting metaphorical possibility.

Not that this homebody has much desire to travel. And not that I — as a creature of routine, who prefers living in his head than out in the world — personally desire the vagabond life of spontaneity and uncertainty. And not that accumulating possessions has any interest for me. Still, we all have other kinds of baggage weighing us down: fear, distrust, the burden of the past.

I like how the poem begins in the cold and dark, and ends in warmth and lightness.