"The Question of Travel Chit Chat" by Carol Hamilton

Former Oklahoma Poet Laureate Carol Hamilton was the Songs of Eretz Poetry Review Poet of the Month for August 2015 http://eretzsongs.blogspot.com/2015/08/songs-of-eretz-poetry-review-poet-of.html and the guest judge for the 2016 Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest.  She has recent and upcoming publications in: Pontiac Review, Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine, Poet Lore, Limestone, Louisiana Literature, Off The Coast, Palaver, San Pedro River Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Hubbub, Blue Unicorn, Abbey, Main Street Rag, Two Cities Review, Poem, Tipton Poetry Review, and others. She has published seventeen books, most recently, Such Deaths from the Visual Arts Cooperative Press in Chicago.

The Question of Travel Chit Chat

Carol Hamilton    

The poet mused that perhaps

on better acquaintance

the stranger across from him

in the train carriage

she busy reading

might prove the true soulmate

moreso than the one waiting

at journey’s end

I can only assume

this imaginative traveler

keeps a firm grip

on his wise choice not to dare

a vault over the social barriers

In his state of pitiful caution

he has assured himself

a pleasant trip

with a predictable arrival

   …  illusions intact.

Poet’s Notes:  Whether or not to strike up a conversation with the new neighbor on a train or a plane.... The imagined lives we live as we visit new places, perhaps wondering how different our lives might have been if...if...if....  Imagination fuels the poet’s life, and certainly this poetic musing of another stirred my remembrance of travel fantasies. It is such fun to try out possibilities for one’s unlived lives. Then again, how can we not help but suspect that we might not just take our own selves along with us even into those charming dream worlds?