Timbuktu Poem by Joe Bisicchia

What does Timbuktu mean to you?
Is it a tired cliché of somewhere far, far away?
Is it like nothing you know, just plain peculiar, something to ignore?

Is it foreign and unfamiliar and thus such a strange and dangerous place?
Would it be dreadful being there having to wear a stranger's face?
Is it far as the world, distant as the dark outside your door?

Is it safely fictitious, a place too far-flung,
too make-believe, too much like Loch Ness, too unknown to even be true?
Or, is it too real, and thus a sensible feel of a place to stay away from?

But, what if you must surrender to trust and yield to what is ultimately real,
would you be comfortable using what your gifts were given for?
What if there in Timbuktu, it's there where your leap of faith has taken you?

What would you find so very regular and so very new?
Would the dramatic or anticlimactic unearthing be vicious
or serendipitous?

Caution may very well suit you in Timbuktu and everywhere.
A den of cubs especially is personal to a mother bear.
Your haven is something rather exclusive to you too.

Yet, just as you are never too far from home to write a poem,
and never too far to get on your knees to pray,
you are never too far to communicate in a human way.

Safe to say, if you can behold true gold in others
and in you,
you might just feel at home even in Timbuktu.





Published by Coldnoon Diaries,2017