[The Restorative Nature of Travel] Why Travel Leads to Identity

 An airport, a Greyhound station, an Amtrak steaming down the railway, staring out of the window, free of the monotony of everyday life. Travel imbues in us our true identity and reinforces what we can be, reminds of us that what we could be is but a thing not meant to be.

We lose ourselves to once again find ourselves, to travel the length of an unknown path for so long that we begin living inside of that path. Memories stain our brains, become apart of us, define our identity and leaves no doubt as to what can be accomplish. This is a vast and scary world we live in, where the wrong turn or step could lead us into turmoil but nothing is without its flaws; if we want to find beauty, we must walk paths into directions we've never been, we've never imagined, those we've spent the entirety of our lives reading of and idolizing, to get to the light that is always there, if we are so inclined, so intent on finding.

Travel not for the luxury, or the means, or the motive but the leitmotif to keep living, to refuse, as Bob Dylan once said "To go down under the ground because someone told me death was coming round," or Dylan Thomas " Do not go quietly into that good night." Travel is a means of fighting for life, for identity, to continue learning in a life where knowledge is forever a prerequisite for survival.

Live for travel, travel to live, learn to love the earth as the earth has provided the circle of life that has come to the day of your birth.

-Dontrell Lovet't

[The Harness] a travel poem

            So field the fields of dreams,

which may or may not be,

where home homes constant constants

constantly care-filled;

I care not those cares,

care less to carry

any other harness other than

the one on my back-

 

If I’ve carried it but a step,

a million more may follow

following the comings and goings

coming wonderfully bittersweet;

like the dust would rise above

the horizon it knows its sky nearly

almost every moment preceding

momentary rises-

not a step forward I fear

to break, not a step backwards

again will I take,

nor should more weight with

detoured tack,

to never again fall, with

this harness on my back

So do truly the miles I’ve walked

bare memories more plenty than

the living and breathing, too, truly,

I pulsate vibrant with aliveness away

than I’ve ever face to face

            Not even partially can apologies

renders obsolete what those who know

of me reckon, how never dull my eyes seem

dreary dreams every second content

If John Henry was born knowing he’ll die a

steel-driving man, with that,

this man, so appallingly far from a child,

can admit he’ll die,

with harness on his back

There was childhood in Texas,

then there was childhood in Louisiana,

a bustling teen in Illinois,

so speak next of the lifting teen

back on the Texas plains

            Sabine Pass will whimper,

what Chicago winds temper,

how birth brings hostages into this

life with trauma,

to those condemned bridges

tattering this expansive psychodrama;

if I am to participate

I do so without slightest wait,

if I am to wake and remain awake,

sacrificing for the sake of

sacrificing will never be

necessary to take

            Pity me not,

mind not my callous feet that rot,

cry less regarding my being

ignore any beliefs of my fleeing

and if so happens,

I may never double back,

question not, whether I died

with harness on my back-

Dontrell Lovet't

[Grounded Cafe] a poem

Out this window,
a brave new world stares
just back over my shoulder-

the Calinis abrade
the view;
not a bad distraction,
sudden glamour, blooming
coquettes, blushed, brushed
beauties, diploids done up so
wonderful, one is obliged
to praise the union of once apart
haploids-

since i've nowhere to go &
nowhere to go is the sole reality,
how grateful one must make of me,
to even get a glimmer past,
proper stolen gems side-
pocketed,
just as anyone else would commit-


-Dontrell Lovet't

from, [UnderStudies]