Handbook for Explorers 36 to 40

36.


For lack of companions you will talk

To yourself; ask how a thought started -

With needs or words? Which was the first to stalk

The other?

Lonely in this search you'll tread

Paths, which go where you can't predict,

Where crowds thump out slogan after slogan

In squares where the same posters are stacked

Sky high, and flash and flicker in the brain

Images of horror and suspicion;

Where you hear your own voice on the phone

Attempt to find out when you might be free;

Where you'll see advace towards you someone

You thought you knew, and look again to see

That it's you, in a mirror, moving on.

37.


You will say, in the middle of a city,

One day, among friends you've not met for years,

"The best part is always what you don't see -

The imagined, the hoped for, the missed chances."




Like the moment long ago when you heard

Someone sing, in a room across the street,

A song you didn't know, and wondered

Who the singer was, and why you could not greet

Her when you saw her face at the window.

Worst is a nightmare, never yet explained,

That travel has only caused to grow -

A roulette wheel, from which you cannot descend,

Where, like a silver ball, you bounce and spin,

Never to settle, neither out nor in.


38.




You may tell your story when there's no one

To listen. No need to look for a laugh

Or exaggerate in aid of fashion

Or art; and if you manage to convey half

Of what you believe happened, you may

Have helped history.



Back from your journey

The hardest thing is to know how to pay

Tribute to the best you met on the way;

They will stand in your memory, hands

Raised in greeting or farewell, dignity

And reserve masking the natural kindness,

Which is the root and custome of their lands.

They'll be the heroes of your adventures;

From them your hope and inspiration grows.

39.

Bold shifts of emphasis have swept

The place you left; and your ideas, lost

Under the feet of new regimes, have crept

Away, uncertain of their worth, and cost

Nothing on the market now; your return goes

Unnoticed; and your discoveries

Seem common place; while those, who can discern

Something of strength and value in your journeys,

Fear they might lose face, if they protested

The plants and creatures you brought back.

Yet, why should you, who never contested

For applause or trophies, regret a lack

Of fame? For close your eyes, instead you'll hear

The triumphant shriek of monkeys in your ear.

40.

The changes that have occurred in the place,

Where you first drew up your plans to travel,

Will make you think you've come back somewhere else,

And that you'll have a new story to tell

About people, who like to shout a slogan

To make it clear they know they're right,

Prove it true by endless repetition,

And finding an excuse to pick a fight.

When you approach these proud strangers, take care

Not to look at them too closely, or try

To work out what kind of men they are,

Who are your brothers, yet chalk "no entry"

On their foreheads. They are explorers too

But can they know that what they've found is you?

Handbook for Explorers 31 to 35

31.

These are the clues some travellers look for:

Clay tablets, papyrus and bone; coins

Minted in the name of kings and scattered

Like birds; ornaments of gold and copper,

Once fastened at the breast of priestesses,

Who had the answers that were wanted then.

You'll make of such clues, some sort of sense,

As, looking for connections to decipher,

You'll weave through narrow streets and boulevards

To places every traveller visits,

And hope that, behind the picture-postcards,

You'll catch sight of something not seen before,

An artefact that time alone has made

From stains, which spread out wide from then to now.

32.

Take no flags to raise above a planet

Or a tract of countryside, where olive trees,

With twisted trunks distil civilisation

From a terrain; where, by a lean-to hut,

A woman, her face as hard as the stone

Of an olive, watches a string of goats;

And fails to quarrel with poverty,

Or with someone like you, without roots and free

To cross seas, and be able to reflect

On the otherness of other people.

No photos please. Theres nothing you can take

From here, no sword or bangle from a grave:

Except the fruit, cheese, bread she's offered you;

And her blessing, once she sees you go.

33.

You'll wait a long time for the words to come

To describe the conflicts that you've seen,

The routes you've taken, the research you've done,

What you have discovered.

But they'll turn out

Not as you intended; and instead

Of the sentences you'd meditated,

Grunts and whistles will astound

The audience. Would numbers or music

Better convey the story of your life -

The howling of a saxophone, murmur

Of a drum?

The trail's been difficult,

And it's spiral course helps you see why

Fibonacci's numbers match the order

Of cactus prickles and of sunflower seeds.

34.


Perilous routes call for confidence;

Forecasts may turn out to be accurate,

And will rob your story of surprise.

Trust in prophets, and you'll forget to think,

And repeat their dubious promises,

And neither see nor hear awakening birds

Blast the forest with their notes of crisis.

The sun will rise, it always has.

If not, it will be hard to say goodbye

To all the places you have visited,

To music and to staring pictures;

See cities and artefacts disappear;

Civilisations, which shout "look, look at me,"

Go with a bang, and no time for a tear.

35.


Hope is important to hold in your head,

Just to keep alive the inquisitive

Urge, which fuels persistence on the road.

Though it may lead you to where dangers thrive,

It lives in trees and grass, sits in the wind;

Breeds joys, which taunt and gratify the eye,

The hand, lips tongue and curious mind;

Creates clouds like promises in the sky;

Sows ideas in your brain that will turn out

To lead their own lives, as words whispered,

Uncertain of their intent, become a shout;

Takes you to watch - alone without a word -

A house, where a slow flame trembles beside

A window, and you don't know who's inside.

Handbook for Explorers 26 to 30

26.

You will never be more than half way there.

Though the space in front and the space behind

May seem the same, you'd like to be the hare

And the tortoise; and the prize, you will find,

Is by its nature of no fixed address.

Why else should it attract you, traveller,

Who loves the form and content, not the dress?

Who's drawn to what's ahead and fleeter far

Than you could ever be, a flash of light

Touching the heels of something gone for good,

Whose steps you'll follow just to catch sight

Of where they went into the trembling wood,

Where in brakes of hawthorn, sloe and yew,

The trail ends as it meant to continue.





27.


The opposite of what's true is true, too:

Mirrors may tell you lies, but to lie twice

Can bring up an image you never knew.


So as you get down from a train or bus,

You'll catch sight of yourself in someone's eye,

As you walk toward each other,

You'll wonder who's meeting whom and why,



And whether, when you first set out, you were

Who you are now and who you will be when,

Held in her arms or his, you'll remember

A scent of washed hair, an inflexion

Almost of despair, a low dove-like timbre

That gives you courage to explore again

A tree bright with starlings you'd forgotten.

28.


To start it is less hard than to end it,

No matter who you are, what it may be:

You may escape the strains of gravity;

Then find, once free, you cannot but transmit

Non-stop signals, which (you hope) may inform

People, who just don't want to listen,

Of what is about to happen and when.

You might say you took shelter from a storm

Once, when the air was heavy, moist and warm

And watched, unready to take off, winged ants,

When black sheets of rain rolled up the distance

To engulf the frail shelter and the swarm.

The flood swept on, picked up houses and trees;

So it started and has not ended yet.

29.

Rivers will have burst their banks and flooded

The routes you'll take, snatched houses up and trees,

Showed vanishing landscapes how chaos

Works; and helped you understand why ordered

Worlds connect with something deeper, more wild

Than you had thought possible from the start.


The current is so fast, you'll lose the art

Of equilibrium and, like an abandoned child,

Clutch at passing sticks; turn head-over-heels

And all but drown; until the water teaches

You about the growth of patterns - creases

In time, perhaps the incidence of petals

In a rose; how close the great is to the small;


How hard to tie the knot that grips it all.



30.

Avatars will be ready when you're lost


In a city or a desert, with directions

And advice; they'll know before you ask

Where you are going, though you will not know.

Such certainty may comfort you for years

Till you see your rear light in the mirror;

Don't ask (for they will kill you for your doubt)

How you travelled nowhere with their help.

Instead you'll get your bearings on your own,

Will nod politely, and pass quickly on,

Your step light, no parrot on your shoulder.

And when you sing, you'll sing of the path

Ahead, glad enough to step upon it,

Still eager to find out what is to come.

Handbook for Explorers 21 to 25

21.


You'll need no calendar on the way:

Every season's indifferent to its myth

And can't respond to acts of faith

That try to keep flood, famine, drought at bay.

The earth's upset and is out of kilter

With the sun and moon; it's no use to ask

What's the time, or complete a simple task

Within a period you can't measure.

And if you want to know what year it is,

The reckoning varies with who was born

And when, and who you choose to love or scorn.

Now the compass needles spin, as sages

Say they will; you must play dice to get through,

And chance alone will keep you steering true.




22.


You must learn, when it's time to move on,

To leave no trace of your brief stay, no ash,

Charred wood, husk of nut, animal bone;


Let no cough escape, twig snap, no light flash.

An explorer, not one to be explored,

You'll not be prey that hunters can pursue,

Nor move, watched every square across the board,

A pawn, which knows how little it can do.

Unless you act to exercise restraint

You'll be treated as a coloniser

After wealth, by those who never learnt

The art of peace nor yet the art of war.

Better that they should look about and say:

It's clear no one's been here today.

23.

Every explorer seems an intruder

To be accused of espionage

And found, when crossing a border,

To have maps or field glasses in his charge.

A fear of strangers is a common state

Of people threatened by their own self-doubt;

So better to know what drug or opiate

They relax with or choose to knock them out.

Perhaps you'll become friends and swap clichés

Across a table, mingle politics

With sentiment; and think of ways

To ease the trade in sly half truths and tricks,

To find your way across a hostile land

With words its government will understand.

24.

When you return to maps and grubby texts

To find out where you've been and aim to go,

You'll see that stains of damp and smudged insects

Have obscured the routes you used to follow,

And made a cypher of the way ahead:

Continents have appeared among the stains

And words, not yet written down or said,

Crushed by tectonic plates, drowned by oceans.

There is too much art and literature.

That mouldy smell says, hit the road again.

If there are messages encrypted there

Or piles of smoke stacked against the sun,

No matter: it's time to pull on your boots,

Walk free; you're not a tree and need no roots.

25.

It's best, when hard-pressed, always to go slow,

Sharpen your knife with care, know where to stop,

Just where to cut, and where the buds will grow;

There is no hurry in the rising sap.

And you need not hurry to get somewhere,

(Whatever your strategy or the lack of it)

Which is just a step on a moving stair,

Past which fleeting images fit,

Or not, templates of what you most desire.

Slowly raise your wineglass to your lips

As though nothing else mattered; slowly light

A cigarette; slowly place your footsteps

In the uneasy maze of wrong and right.

Though you walk just from A to B, you'll see

The whole alphabet spread out like a tree

Handbook for Explorers 16 to 20

16.

Sometimes you may be surprised to have lived

In the times you have; to find yourself where

You are; and not more than halfway to where

You want to be. You have, by chance, survived

The guns and bombs of those, who have been sent

To enforce rules, which you know nothing of,

And bring bland messages disguised as love -

The teeth which gnaw the fabric of your tent.

If you have time to reflect a little

You'll see what's to come is a hazard still.

Helped just by experience and skill,

Free of both dread and hope, you'll stand or fall,

Moved by no evangelical belief,

But by the strength that brings the tree to leaf.

17.

There are places, where you'll want to rest for days

Months, even years, which you will come to love,

Where in deep grass, you'll watch calm cattle graze;

And this will only strengthen your resolve

To be off; though someone may linger on

Beside you, stroke the edges of your spine,

Help you lift potatoes, and bring children

Round your knees to command your attention.

But when bluebells and anemones appear

You'll remember what you've long forgotten;

That, before you breathe again, you must move on:

Home isn't where you are or where you were,

But a place where you know you've never been,

And must, again, be ready to begin.

18.

As often as you've come safe through the mist

And brushed the sunlight from your startled eyes,

You'll have tumbled from a precipice

And all you've gained will have been lost;

Though just to have survived evens the score;

And there'll be more to do; languages

To learn; instructions and maps, for ages

Forgotten, to spread out and decipher;

Yet by the time you've made sense of them, found

Words of guidance for the route you'll take next,

You'll begin to ask if you can trust the text,

And then look down to see the shifting ground

And your brave policy admit defeat,

As rocks begin to slip beneath your feet.

19.

And yet, you must keep saying, "and yet",

To preserve your mind from loss of balance

And keep on thinking that there's still a chance

To find a route, which you can safely bet

Will lead to an unlikely country

Where people have learned the art of kindness,

With no rules of play and no blind duress,

No referee to insist how you must be.

But if they tell such stories to keep up hope;

And if you choose to sing as you trudge on,

Valiant hymns of love and salvation,

You'll feel better; and feeling better stop

To reflect: that no end is more worthwhile

Than, when it comes, you can't hold back a smile.

20.

There'll be no one to talk to where you are,

Just horses galloping away from you,

And towards you, savage flesh made air,

And people scarcely ever passing through,

And when they do, not to communicate

Except with lowered eyes and expletives.

Though you'll have words of careful thought and wit

To share with others about their lives

And yours; or so you'll think, but cannot tell

If they're worth the trouble, till there's a note

Of recognition, a murmur or a yell:

"That's what I felt, but couldn't hit the spot".

So, on endless prairies burned by sun,

You'll tell the long, white skyline what you've done.