I can't write when I travel
my observations seem banal to me
what anyone else might observe
or else simply mistaken or distorted
I can't write the Fulbright travelogue, the tourist poem
I am a poor tourist, I like residing more than visiting
I do like traveling, the odd distortions of time and place
and beauties produced by disorientation
"the strange hours we keep to see them"
as William Carlos Williams put it
so jet lag is actually a good thing!
but I don't like trying to have experiences other people expect me to have
or writing down my reactions to what I see
my, those Alps are steep!
so I can't write anything about bleak and beautiful Cuba
Patagonia where I have never been
I like traveling to give a talk or meet people
interested in my ideas about things
I like being away and coming back
trying to talk to people in the language of the place
and reading novels in languages I don't fully comprehend on the plane back
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