When You are Unafraid

My friend Padraig Hanratty in Ireland posted the above photo with the caption:

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

I love Padraig's many wonderful photos of Ireland and the dreams he sends to us. Today's picture made me think this.

If you know you can take care of yourself
Then you stride without fear
You enjoy places far
You adore places near

New, old, rainbow, bold
Every place takes your fancy
Confidence takes you everywhere
That more timid people think are "chancy"

Passion in the ocean
Beauty in the sky
Interest in a rocky road
And the beings passing by

Conversations and smiles to share
People need a hand
Time to stop, time to care
It's the only way to learn!

And a man with a camera
Has so much joy to spread
His friends are lucky
For our hearts he has led.

Venice: A Photo and a Poem

Everyone watched the boatman
Tall and lithe and lean
His music made the city
Into everybody's dream

But the stories true worth knowing
Were not so plain to see
Behind every glorious window
Was a busy little bee

The women, the servants
At work in the houses
The rich take the glory
No-one sees the mouses

Venice, most beautiful
Venice, most serene
Venice, most terrible
Built on broken dreams

Oh the glory of her generals
(and the pain of those who lost)
Oh the wisdom of her merchants
(it was others who paid the cost)

Every glorious window
Every impeccably crafted stone
Cost the blood of other people
It's not beauty alone

And now there is Venice, most beautiful.
Venice, most serene.
Venice, so terrible, yet...
In everybody's dreams.

There is no Venice but Venice.

Photo by the inimitable Grant Zelych, 2015.

Poem by Christa Bedwin, 2015.

Two travellers fond of sharing adventures in foreign lands.