A Poem for the Tuesday Platform

Why do I travel;
for delight it brings?

Started with a bucket list
Moscow, Panama Canal
Great Wall of China as well

Those in mind, first came my son
To his wedding, Barbados
With blushing bride made their vows

While in the Caribbean
Why not visit Martinique
And St. Lucia, islands near

Learned of Napoleon's wife
Awed by their island homesite
Josephine's Statue, headless

Ate bananas in their fields
from their trees and sampled rum
from the barrel.  Shoulders rubbed 

Soon cruised Panama Canal
Then sailed from Moscow on to
St. Petersburg. Walked the Wall

Our bucket list long empty
With the highway in our veins
Now eighteen years we've traveled

Fifty states, most of Europe,
South America have been
India to Capetown next

Why do I travel
Because it's there
_ _ _

 - Poem Copyright, Jimmiehov 2019, All Rights Reserved
 - I am linked with Sanaa Rizvi in the Imaginary Garden at http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-tuesday-platform-questions-of-travel.html?m=1

 - I hate that this turned out sounding like a bragging write. More detail would have been more boring  But it has been much of my eighteen retired years and many summer while teaching has been on the road, sea, and air.
 - Best liked was driving literally all over Europe but there isn't one holiday travel that I have regretted. Eight have been Missionary oriented.
 - Oh yes,  Mrs. Jim has been with me everywhere except for my business
  monthlong romp in San Francisco and one trip to Guatemala.  Two of our children and three grandkids have also tagged along.

Friday Poem -- Goodbye

Goodbye my friend

Goodbye my friend, might we visit in the Spring 
The violets will be flowering but I won't
Won't be loving you.  Just renew our acquaintance
and catch up a bit if that's okay, we will see
 
Goodbye my friend, it has been nice your loving me
but only at the start.  Bitching I can't and won't 
take so very long, I must leave yours far behind 
If you'll stop and promise to be nice I may come
 
Goodbye my friend, aren't you glad we didn't make this
a done deal.  From the start the terms were bad for both
I think you had the better.  Quibble let us not
It's over now so that doesn't mater to me
 
Goodbye my friend, I hope it is easy for you
to say that to yourself.  It's over, often say
I tried to make it that way when I saw our thing
wouldn't work.  Didn't want tears from you, nor from me 
 
Goodbye my friend, a grown man now, I still can cry
Just as I did when we were younger.  Reason tells
crying in the heart is not for you, I will try 
Been a long time, seems years and years, but no longer
 
Goodbye my friend, take good care of my dog, will you 
I will send for her, I hope I'm where she can come 
Don't give her away, please.  You're very dear to her 
I love her so very much, will miss her always
 
Goodbye, my ship is leaving now.  People are here
to see us off, I didn't expect you to come
Spring will come, I'll be here.  Now you find someone new  
He has to be good to you, my word.  And my dog 
 

Saying "Goodbye", 

some of our new Russian friends to us on ship, and

 

 

the ship's crew and us waving from the top deck to
our new Russian friends left behind in Moscow.

- - - -

Photo and Poem Copyright, © 2006 and 2017 Jimmiehov, All Rights Reserved 

I'm linked with Kerry O'Connor  at The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, A Skyflower Friday: Goodbye, http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-skyflower-friday-goodbye.html . Kerry would like for us to use some of the ideas she posted there.  Some goodbyes are sad, some are happy, some are long, some are short.  And so on and on. 

 

The pictures are of people who came out to wave goodby when we left Moscow.  My favorite River Voyage was our Fall 2006 river passage from Moscow to St. Petersburg.  That all took 12 lovely days, we were the last Viking Line boat to make the trip before Spring.  Our ship would soon be frozen in the water at the riverside docks in St. Petersburg.  For more of that Russian holiday, Click here.

 

One Single Impression: Monument

Fall from grace

they stood tall and proud
monuments to once known gods
center of worship
now grown old and decaying
no one knows and no one cares

Photos and Poem Copyright
© 2010 Jimmiehov
All Rights Reserved

- - - - - - - -

Prompt words, Monument, suggested
by Ramesh Sood at A Little More Than Ordinary..

Find more poems at One Single Impression
using "Monument" as prompt
µ
Photos:
Top, from river cruise; somewhere in Russia between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Right, ruins near Agrigento, Sicily, Italy.

SkyWatch Friday (my twelfth) -- Left from the 1980 Winter Olympics - Moscow, U.S.S.R. (now Russia) - Still used today for recreation and sport

I am sorry but we can't see very far in the sky.
Bottom picture shows the problem.









Top Picture [large picture] [super sized]
Second Picture [large picture] [super sized]
Third Picture [large picture] [super sized]
Bottom Picture [large picture] [super sized]

I call it sky pollution.

Other Participants and How to Have Your Own Skywatch