Confessions of a wanderer

My restless, wandering spirit
Takes the greatest pleasure
Sweeping across faraway places
Searching for elusive treasure

Each new land I visit
Welcomes with open arms
Shares with me its secrets
Enchants with its charms

Stay on; settle down; people plead
Why this need to roam?
How to explain to these gentle souls
That it’s the road I call my home?

Hopes, dreams, love, joy, tears, desires
These ties conspire to bind
My soul seeks, in an onward quest
To break free, to unwind

At times want to take as souvenirs
The things that give delight
But I let them go with a gentle sigh
You see I’m traveling light

Yet some things become a part of me
Moments lived, memories
My ports of restful shelter
When I sail turbulent seas

What treasure do I then seek?
What is it that worlds encrust?
Where a single path can well suffice
What fuels this wanderlust?

I think it’s simply the journey
That sends me on my way
And some of life’s best-kept secrets
Unravel along the way

The heady heights of freedom
The depths of solitude
Can someone, not a wanderer
Know its magnitude?

So seek new roads, oh wanderer
Lest one day you awaken
Burdened with a heavy heart
For all those roads not taken...

(Inspired by Avi's post Wanderer's muse on S&C, Ryze)

*Photograph by Amitabha Das