A Wayfarer on an Endless Road

The Irish are known to be great travellers. An example of their peripatetic nature is the ubiquitous Irish pub. I have found them in Cochabamba, Sucre, La Paz, Lima, and throughout the Caribbean islands. There is the underlying urge to set out from the Emerald Isle and discover the secrets the globe contains! Perhaps this is the reason my feet have wandered so many paths and why my father was called the walking man?

For all the wandering Irish spread across the seven seas I offer this poem from Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize for Literature winner from 1913 (passing over such acclaimed individuals as Tolstoy, Ibsen, Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw):

My Greetings

Comrade on the road, here are my traveler’s greetings to You.

God of my broken heart, of leave-taking and loss, of the grey silence of the dayfall, my greetings of the ruined house to You.

Light of the newborn morning, sun of the everlasting day, My greetings of undying hope to You.

My Guide, I am a wayfarer on an endless road, my greetings of a wanderer to You.” (Rabindranath Tagore, The Heart of God)

Of course the Irish are not the only wanderers. No matter what country we call home or where we hail from, a part of us is always on the move. My prayer is that as you make your journey you will know that you do not travel alone but have a Comrade and a Guide to lighten your path.