The pull of travel

Today a friend in Croatia wrote me “Hare Krišna!” and another friend in the UK wrote me of her newborn, and in that mood of missing each of them, I wrote the following, of the pull of travel. From March 2020 I have traded my constant flying and traveling since 2006 for a little room in a temple asrama:

It pulls sometimes, the heart’s deep strings

To go again, where travel brings

me to the homes of friends so dear

To have the far away come near

My friends! My friends! Across the world

You’re scattered like the seeds that swirled

From planter’s hand in soils of spring

To go again, where travel will bring

And, yet, the Lord has put me here

and settled me and made it clear

He wants me here to serve a while

His choice of place to make Him smile

And I’m grateful and peaceful and settled in

There’s an ocean of nectar in which to swim

But it pulls sometimes, the heart’s deep strings

to go again, where travel brings.