Each time, after countless trips, still strange magic.
Hours ago, we were eating croissants in the sun,
looking at the soft green column of the Bastille,
the genie de la Liberté, golden wings aloft, still leaping.
Today I wake up to crisp carpeting leaves
in an old Puritan village.
The time capsule of my body registers the mystery.
Back home, friends say: how fast that went!
Routine moves briskly like an airport moving walkway.
Decades ago, dazzled by a bold travel escapade,
I vowed to keep displacement center stage.
We met a friend outside our office building,
It was dusk on Sixth Avenue, New York.
He was cursing the broken Xerox machine.
Rimbaud says make yourself a stranger.
He was young, so was I. Still we try. Je est.
I is. Til I trip again.