Category: Ricoh RF 500

The Ends of the Earth

I have stood
At the ends of the Earth
And wondered
What lay beyond

Not the horizon
Where there is only
More water
And more land

How many sunsets
Have I witnessed
In this lifetime
And all the others

How many times
Have I watched
The last rays
Of a day dying

On a drive
Through the beautiful mountains
Of a third-world country

I visited
Many towns and villages
Where people lived in what I called poverty

The more I drove
The more I realized how much I have
But how little of it I need

Here have I resided
For a hundred generations
Constructed for Gautama
In honour of compassion
And the light of self-reflection

Gather here in peace
Quieting your mind
Listen for my voice
The wisdom of the ancients

There are places
Which seem an endless space
Like the land goes on forever
Into nothingness

But when I look more closely
Therein lies the beauty
I see the endless changes
And nothing less

The land rolls
Like waves across the sea
Like the grasses
In staccato breeze

And there go we
Like sailors
Over the rolling land
Into unknown worlds

The world provides
Such an abundance
Of the strange
And unknown

I try not to let
My ignorance
Confine my experience

I have discovered light
Emitted by many sources
Each illuminating
The world in its own way

But the light which guides me
Burns from within
And from there illuminates
My true path in the world

There are places in this world
Where fairytales
Have always been true

Will you still remember me
From this time allotted me
Once death steals the life from me
So all that’s left is what we see

Will it be a photograph
In your mind, an epitaph
Or the sound of my lost laugh