Suggested by reading from a chapter on "Sacrifice" from Thomas Moore's book "The Soul's Religion"

INTERIOR VOYAGE

It’s a voyage,
A voyage I claim to know well,
To have done countless times before.
I am so full of myself.
Every time I set out again
On that allegedly so-familiar voyage,
I find myself utterly lost
With no clue
As to how to get
Where I am supposed to be going,
And what in fact my destination might be.

I brag too much,
Of all the places I’ve seen,
How I got there,
And the wonderful things I did
When I arrived where I was going.
Where was I going?
And what did I expect to do
When I got there?
Vanity can make the brain seem full,
But it’s all noxious gas
That can only sicken, not satisfy.

Still I must travel, as all men do,
And eventually I will learn hopefully
To consult map and chart,
And when correcting my course
As is often necessary
Seek my lodestar far outside myself
And steer by it
Instead of the noise and wind inside,
That muffle my senses
And make me unaware
Of the rocks I must steer clear of.

-Chip Bergeron
March 16, 2013