Travelling with an old friend.
Auld Lang Syne, and all that.
You like it even when the
hairpin bends
Of mountain roads make you nauseous, even as
you wait for connectivity and get
mugged
by yesterday's emails. A dazzling sunset often
makes up, or a boat ride through a mangrove forest.
Mild annoyance is the only language the gods speak, didn't you know? Did you not?

Later, when your sore back is
Horizontal on a hotel bed
and the lights have to be turned off.
Damned, but alive.
Only then, on the margins of Consciousness
You wake up
To lurid Dreams of
absolution. Of joy, even.

Something must give. Something!