The Sentimental Traveler

His name is James Holman.

Born to serve and explore.

Globetrotter, wayfarer, voyager.

A baby. Leaves his mother

for the navy.

It was a month before

his eleventh birthday.

Pain in the portside kicker—

sharp and unending, he

continues the dreaded

weather-deck night-watch.

The pain explores

his battered, war-torn body,

wreathing into his eyes.

Blinded—not from syphilis,

but from arthritis.

Blinded—but still able to see.

Waving and smacking

his cane,

it gives him feedback.

He is an echolocator.

Unbothered and determined,

there is one goal:

Unassisted and alone,

he must round the globe

as a bat.

“I’d like to see the Eiffel Tower,

or perhaps I’ll climb the Basilica!”

Vesuvius: perturbed.

A canopy of black snow

swathes the pilgrim.

The mountain-vomit melts his shoes.

“Don’t trip, don’t trip.”

The worse time to summit

a volcano is when it’s erupting.

Africa. Though he did not see

gazelles boogie through plains.

He felt the sorrow of caged men

who await a patron saint.

The negotiation would require

the instated to deny The Company.

And for a blind man to climb another mountain.

Choosing not to be enslaved

by your circumstance

is impossible for some.

A volunteer, the rover

will aid those who call for grace.

Some are enslaved by people,

not disease.

Dreams of rainbows

and fighting the slave trade

are squandered by freezing

gusts and falling heaps of

white—Siberia.

Senses are crystalized and

a full wake-up is accomplished.

Stopped by Okhrana:

The Tsar’s secret police.

They question his purpose.

They call him a liar.

“You cannot travel the world

if you cannot see!”

But this blind man sees.

Exiled back to England:

he is at his birthplace

but not at home.

His decision now:

To return to his travels

and write it all down.

Maybe this time he could bring a camera.