Eremition

Poem by Richard Dittami

Leaving home again.

I’m prepared this time for anything.

A tunnel of white light, a police gauntlet, a sudden revelation of my life’s true purpose.

More likely I’ll encounter just another lonely road drifting southward.

I’m packed; passport, past lives, toothbrush, karma and underwear.

I’ve knelt my suitcase shut, certain that I’ve packed some items useless, meanwhile leaving other items essential behind.

There is no knowing the road ahead.

Possibility whispers like the insects of summer as I lock the door and walk away.

My lives (past, present and future) are aloft and descending.

Always too much and never enough.

A sensation like déjà vu/ like déjà vu tells me I’ve passed this track before.

As though dice tossed in antiquity have yet to land.

Home won’t fit in a Manilla envelope, can’t be jammed into a travel bag.

Yet, it lingers in the light in my eye and the tingling of my finger tips.

There is no real leaving it nor is there any return.

On the bus to the airport I imagine the city buildings as cardboard cutouts in the early morning darkness. My eyes are like a security camera at a gas station seeing everything, perceiving nothing. The bus hits highway speed. Next the jet will scream down the runway into the air and I will be carried away from, and I will carry home away from, home again.