Journey Home by Rabindranath Tagore
The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my
voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!’
The question and the cry `Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand
streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!’
This meditative poem by Tagore is beautiful and has layers of profundity. Having just driven to Lichfield from the other side of Manchester, and then home from Lichfield tonight in the dark after performing my work in schools across Lichfield as part of their Literature Festival, I know just what he means in his opening lines.
Home was an excellent choice of theme for National Poetry Day as it is so resonant for every human. I am certainly glad to be back in mine. Travelling may broaden the mind but returning home comforts it.
Angela Topping 