The way that it works, the way it has always worked, is that I stay still.  Very.

Cozy and cocooned, safe and snuggled.  With my eyes shuttered my mind flows  from dream to dream, riding the undulating wave  from the tangled woods of Maine to  the angled streets of Paris. Wrapped in an afgan of imaginings I am there even with my feet firmly planted.

But today, in truth, HERE I AM.  For once, so unteathered, so very far away. A balloon slipped from grasp, a fighter kite sliced from string, a glider fighting for a gasp of wind.

An army of images marshaling themselves to animation all at once, I am overwhelmed at  the banquet.

Unfamiliar and uncharted territory indeed. Lost and lonely.

A swath of yearned for sights is arrayed before me.

But at the ruins of Pompeii I am dazzled by hearty nubbled bark of the  Mediterranean Pines. A flit of brilliant green by the Spanish Steps: a ring tailed parakeet!  At the magnificent palace of Casserta I spy the delicate mound of the sand wasp. Their home.

Looking up I spot it. Oh, there it is! It’s one of the rarer sightings.  Fleeting tendrils flowing from the billows of cloud. A virga!

Looking up, I somehow see the faces of yearned for loved ones bathed in light.

l look upward to look inward. Miss you all. Home soon.