Continents - 7/28/10

I want to step foot on every
continent, and circumnavigate
this fat round earth.

It used to be every country,
but I’m already far too old for that.

So when we talk about Spain
we also talk about Morocco
and I roll my tongue

over the sound of a word,
that counts for Africa.

When I tell my mother she smiles
and says not to do Antarctica till she’s dead.
She doesn’t want to know.

For Asia, we have a plan
for the Trans-Siberian train
across the rough seas of Russian land.

For South America,
I hope for Peru, the steepness of Machu Picchu
or Chile.
Then Australia.

And last
all that ice.
I can’t afford to go to the Pole,
but I’ll settle for seeing the Ross Sea
and McMurdo Sound and the Ice Shelf rising like a castle
at the bottom of this ball
of fire and rock
spinning in all that dark space.