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If you were to travel to the small town of Arras in northern France, and managed to find this facade of one of my dream houses, you would be very close to the stretch of wall where the following photos were taken. Mysteries abound in this life, and messages left on walls, then torn off, leaving enigmatic traces, have always caught my eye, and can easily tempt me to stop and tarry, trying to gain some insight . . .
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It was on the tip of my tongue
But I couldn't quite remember
A message I'd seen long ago
Perhaps in the pages of a book
From the library
Checked out in childhood
Perhaps from a bathroom stall
Where messages of vital importance
Were scrawled that we saw
While on the road across a continent
Stopping where we could for sustenance
And for relief in squalid roadside restrooms
In campgrounds where all walks of life
Rubbed shoulders and left messages
On walls or scribbled on napkins
In a chrome covered diner
I just can't quite bring it into focus
There was something that seemed
Momentous, inspiring, nearly infinite
Yet the more I try to hear the words again
The further they recede through a mirage
In the morass of clamoring words
All vying for attention
All claiming to be the true word the one word
A cacophonous howling of wolves
And yet the essence of the message
Hovers just out of sight
On the fringe of the forest
Just in the shadow beyond the edge of the trees
Refusing to emerge into the daylight
Coy, teasing, infuriating, maddening
I want to yell myself hoarse
I heard the message long ago
But didn't think to write it down
Now it has gone on to hidden realms
Leaving just the faintest memory
Which I wish I could share with you
But I wouldn't know how to begin
To describe it
So I search for it always
On walls
Hoping against hope
That the writing on a wall somewhere
Will serve as the key
To unlock this memory
For now only the walls remain
And their mysteries
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Exile is not a material thing, it is a moral entity.
All corners of the Earth are worthy.
All places where dreaming happens are ... ???
As long as the place is ... ???
And the horizon is ... ???
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