Wide brown land

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror �
The wide brown land for me!

We had to say this at school in the fifties – over and over and the imprinting sticks. I love the place. Went there recently for the Psychodrama Conference in Brisbane, spent a week in northern NSW, driving around, camping, the poem kept rolling through my head, especially when there were floods or sweeping pains. I saw plenty of both while there.

Ithaca

Ithaca

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Love this poem by Constantine Cavafy. Thanks Stephen, for sending it along a few years ago.
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