The colours stay within the mind, the light
Will not so easily permit itself
To be put out. In thoughts once more at home
A foreign fire will gleam, tints taken from
A sail, a wake of water widening out
Or subtle colours that make crumbling buildings
Renew themselves. These we have with us still.

And home again we learn how much we build
Abroad, put roots down in impermanence
Yet waver not from what time drags away
But are drawn too—like colours fading fast,
Like slow canals escaping to the sea.
Rest in this power to adapt, remember
The mind still turns like the huge globe and shows
Now Italy, now England and we are
The axis on which all our journeys move.

—Elizabeth Jennings, “XI. Journey from a Landscape,” from Sequence in Venice
Photography Credit Viktor Gårdsäter, from “Balloon Man’s Last Walk,” via Booooooom

10:45 am  •  24 January 2013  •  180 notes