Keep-Sakes

Are we the leaving or that which gets left

As we depart this port, the place they call

Puerto Vallarta, and by that act of calling

Believing we got the place, but not at all?

We only know a part, meandering

Mariachis, cheerful vendors, smooth tequila,

A feel that fails to hold even as this ship

Slips out to sea, monotonous wave-sounds

Lull us away, and where are we? What is it

We keep, once we have gone, of this brief visit?

It slips in strong relief from our own words,

And what remains of trips becomes like clothes,

A garment picked up but replaced where we

Found it, ethereal fabric on our skin

Woven from fragments of these places we have been.

In other places, we will wear the cloth thin

While adding colors that reveal even more

Of ourselves than mere words, confessing parts

Less noticed more than on this very shore,

Realized through other strands recovered by tide

And time, worn flotsam, feelings made to hide.

These trinkets, washed and reviewed over years,

Make of us traveling ourselves' souvenirs.

                                                                        KLK

                                                                        2/6/05