by Mark Clough

• Prompted by the 2023 Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage

How Delicious This Anonymity
This Stranger In A Strange Land
No Who … No Where … No Why to dread
No Knowing the path that I now tread

How Sweet It Is … to be
Lost in the Wonderment of
This Liminal place
Wrapped in This Arcadian embrace

How Content This Smile …
This self-forgetfulness
That shadows my face
Tabula Rasa or Coup de Grâce

How Sublime This Freedom
This Journeying to pass through
The Niōs Sanmon Gates
Guarding The Void Destiny Dictates

How Tragic the Joy of Inexorable Fate
Future memories of Pasts … of This Present
This meditation an epilogue
Wanderer Above The Sea Of Fog

How Lovely the Innocence of Youth
In absentia … Forevermore
Unfettered … Unrestrained … Out of Breath
This faded memory … This … Return to the Sea
My eulogy
This Good Man Walking to That Right Death