Departures

Departures

Departures, holding patterns
Destinations where we're drawn
As mountains slowly flatten
With excess baggage worn

Weathered and well travelled
Concealed in the hold
With clouds outside the window
Obscuring the folds

The creases in our passports
The leavings of our pasts
A duty with a price tag
Free to flights flown fast

For those that run at touch down
Move fast with runways hit
Soaring where the heart flies
Landing where souls sit

Like palm trees in the darkness
Silhouetted in the night
Landed after sunset,
and shuttled out of sight

With Landmarks left for taking,
for tourists to trade
Vacations of our making
Our ticker tape parade

Padlocks wound through lengths of mesh
Pied pebbles in a pond
Bridges spanned, yet never crossed
Ripples, skimmed too long

Pennies spent in fountains, proof,
of wishes yearned, so deep
Wells where wishes weather, wear
In fathoms, secrets sleep

Lying broken in the bush
Abandoned in the brush
Where tourists don't entertain
With hours spent so rushed

Ricocheted to rivers' ends
We never stop to play
The joy that starts where rivers bend
Chicanery's life's way

With holding patterns, holding fast
Departures where we're drawn
Wear your excess baggage proud
… arrive before the dawn