I am a traveler
I have tickets to everywhere
I know that isn’t fair
And if you think this is hot air
Allow me to share;
Manuscripts are my airfare!
A book in hand
Is worth a ticket around the world
Many that one could afford
With a yearning to understand
The wisdom of the gods
You are no longer blind
When I reads I paint
Pictures of emotions felt
By peoples different
In hearts, of lands distant
Pains and laughs otherwise faint
Becomes suddenly so acute
Every time I read
I taste wine and rare bread
From the bakeries of the dead
And somehow breed
With their attitudes and creeds
Gradually I am freed
On scribbled tablets
I find dark alleys
And numerous tunnels
Leading to elongated railways
Some, wide and common pathways
Most, narrow and troubled waterways
Whenever I read
I find and plant a seed
That painfully grows to feed
My innermost desires and needs
Thus, I ascend
That is why I read.
"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." -- St. Augustine