The first time

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 The first time


The first time I went to Peru 

I almost didn’t go.


I sat staring at the map in my bed

pondering all I did not yet know

Could not yet know

And felt like this trip

Was a winter’s roaring wave

About to crash on my head.


So it is, then, tonight

One sleep away from a little known

Country- my inscape awaits me

at the door of my first silent retreat.


Silence offers no map to study

no time zones or place names

or pocket dictionaries to boot. 


Silence


perhaps my furthest

trip yet. 

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