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