Camouflage
I.
The objective of traveling can not
Be to lose oneself
Unless it be for a moment —
The sun shining like cartwheel fire
Between Grecian temples
The notes wrapping themselves around
The winged-legs of Flamenco
Dancers at night in Seville
The first taste after dawn
Of farm-cherished nourishment
In Grange, County Waterford
Or the view from that tower
In Paris
With soldiers at the base
Looking for dirty bombs
And Roma
II.
The objective can’t be escape
Isolation
Hermitage
Absolute severance
It can’t be to transform
One’s ghosts into lost shadows
Or shadows into dust
Swirls
Rimbaud could never leave himself
Behind in the Africa of the guns
Gauguin always met Gauguin
Even among his Tahitian brides
The goddess Circe could not make
Odysseus forget himself or his
Penelope
III.
To travel is to spread oneself
Across a kaleidoscopic canvas
Of being in time-place
It is the boomerang dispersal and effect
Of synchronous power assemblage
Weighted toward inward-outward
Flow
It is
Quite simply
A circular trail
— by Douglas Pinson