I was digging through some old boxes today, looking for a particular photograph, and I found some of my old journals. This one was from 1998/1999 and had a bunch of poetry in it.
I mostly gave up writing poetry in grad school when I became too self-conscious and thought that something wasn’t worth doing unless it was going somewhere. Now I find that rather silly. I have come to enjoy writing for its own sake and not for the dream of one day being a famous writer. So maybe typing these in will help me to remember that poem writing self?
This poem looks back at my spring semester abroad with the University of Dallas’s Rome Program.
Pilgrimage—Spring 1994
I made the pilgrimage with aching feet
and one wrapped ankle
to pray at ancient altars,
hiding, however, the purpose
behind other trappings of holiday.
A regular Canterbury parade of one
nose stuck in book after book
as the trains rolled through the nights,
the world dissolved into a thousand tongues,
and new tastes like strange coins filled my pockets.
Each dawn found me a stranger
alone, but peace was my companion
hardly noticed at my side
until the turmoil of homecoming
found me heathenized once more
vision to dream to memory… gone.
