Wanderings

With wild and woeful wanderings
through desert's trackless depths,
I sought a place of silence
to study best myself.

And when at last I stood alone
and knew the place was reached,
of utter isolation-
I turned and walked within.

From that dry and barren place
the journey was begun,
with baggage from my tired mind
left lying on the sand.

Within the ways of wandering
I followed ancient signs,
which drew new steps on dusty roads;
revealed my hidden lands.

Then having seen I journed back,
through now familiar scenes,
and found my ash-dead desert camp
where I had first begun.

Nothing here that I would need,
my inner world was mapped,
its hills and valleys written deep
upon my very heart.

And now, full-known, returned,
renewed, to my true sense of now-
time again to take my place
within the murmuring crowd.