For all its material advantages,
the sedentary life has left us... edgy
unfulfilled
Even after 400 generations in villages and cities
We haven't forgotten
The open road still softly calls
like a nearly forgotten song of childhood
We invest far-off places with a certain romance
The appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted
by natural selection as an essential element in our survival
Long summers, mild winters
rich harvests, plentiful game
none of them lasts forever
Your own life, or your band's
or even your species' might be owed to a restless few
drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand
to undiscovered lands and new worlds
Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians
he said:
"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.
I love to sail forbidden seas"
Maybe it's a little early—
maybe the time is not quite yet—
but those other worlds, promising untold opportunities
beckon
Silently, they orbit the sun
waiting