David Mayerhoff

David Mayerhoff Poems

The Best Poem Of David Mayerhoff

Travel

Travel allows us to grow
Beyond our conditioning
Beyond our provincial upbringing
Beyond our horizon

We see how others live
How they celebrate
How they aspire
Even how they suffer

We are challenged
To go outside ourselves
And to speak in a different tongue
To be courteous to the foreign

We are challenged
How to be guests
In a domain
Not our own

We are humbled
By what we have
And what we don't have
By comparison

We learn
The interplay
Of geography, climate
And culture, if not religion

All this
Will bring great benefit
As long as we are ready
For it

As long
As we are mature enough
To grow
By opening our eyes

And not simply
By opening our wallets
Just to say
That we were there.

David Mayerhoff Comments