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.